Barbara Bennett, my friend from childhood who lives in St. Louis, sends me lots of interesting stuff. She’s much smarter than I–for that matter, she’s smarter than most people–and she reads so prolifically, she makes me look illiterate (which would hardly take someone as prodigious as she to do). Periodically, she entitles something she sends “[Whatever the Particular Day’s] Laugh.” This one came on Monday past.
I actually had something I thought worthwhile to write about on my blog this week, but not wanting to work that hard, here’s something else instead–I’ll save my piece for another time; in my weekly blog-writing schedule, there’s always “another time”–something that Barbara sent that’s as much fun as it is clever. It also taught me a new word.
Barbara said she got this piece from her sister-in-law, Mary Nemetsky, who’s another smart woman.
A “paraprosdokian” is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part.
“Where there’s a will, I want to be in it,” is a paraprosdokian. Winston Churchill loved them.
1. Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
2. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. However, it has at least crossed my mind.
3. Light travels faster than sound. That’s why some people appear bright until you hear what they have to say.
4. If I agreed with you, we’d both be wrong.
5. We never really grow up, we just learn how to act in public.
6. War does not determine who is right–only who is left.
7. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
8. Evening news is where they begin with ‘Good Evening,’ and then proceed to tell you why it isn’t.
9. To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal ideas from many is research.
10. A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. In my office I have a work station.
11. I thought I wanted a career. Turns out I just wanted paychecks.
12. Whenever I fill out an application, in the part that says, ‘In case of emergency, notify…’ I put ‘DOCTOR.’
13. I didn’t say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.
14. Behind every successful man is a woman. Behind the fall of most successful men is usually another woman.
15. A clear conscience is the sign of a fuzzy memory.
16. You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive more than once.
17. Money can’t buy happiness, but it sure makes misery easier to live with.
18. There’s a fine line between cuddling and holding someone down so they can’t get away.
19. I used to be indecisive. Now I’m not so sure.
20. You’re never too old to learn something stupid.
21. To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.
22. Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.
23. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
24. Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.
25. Where there’s a will, there are usually relatives.
