But back to the original subject: Buckley’s words.
Anaphora – the rhetorical device of repeating the same phrase at the beginning of verses, sentences, or paragraphs. It comes through Latin from Greek. Anaphora in Greek means “a carrying back”. It was first used in English in the 1580s.
Since we're on the subject of rhetorical devices, allow me another diversion from the subject. A friend recently forwarded to me an email about the word paraprosdokian phrases, which are phrases with an unexpected final word. Wikipedia lists one example as a quote from Will Rogers: “I belong to no organized party; I’m a Democrat.” (There are a number of them listed, and the email contained a list of them, too. Check them out if you need a chuckle.)
The interesting thing about the word paraprosdokian is that, while listed in Wikipedia as a figure of speech, it is not found in my dictionary or in dictionary.com or in etymonline.com. On July 21, 2008, socyberty.com cites its etymology as coming from the Greek prefix para- (meaning above or beyond) and prosdokian, meaning expectation. Later on it says “When a paraprosdokian is particularly good it will change the meaning of the first part of a phrase by playing on a word’s potential double meaning. This can create what is known as a syllepsis. This is where the primary verb of a sentence can change meaning according to the other words in the sentence.” (Read more: http://socyberty.com/languages/in-pursuit-of-the-perfect-paraprosdokian/#ixzz10dy95hhV.)
Syllepsis also comes to English through Latin originally from Greek, without any change in spelling. In Greek syn- is the root prefix and means “together”, while the word lepsis means “a taking”. So, a word taken together in describing two or more words though it can only agree with one is a syllepsis. My dictionary uses as an example “either they or I am wrong.” Socyberty uses an example from Alanis Morisette.
Back to paraprosdokian. Google produced about 26,400 results when searching for the word, so it’s all over the internet, even if not in my dictionary or etymological resources. I found a resource, www.writing.com, that had an entry from 2005 and literaryzone.com/?p=32 had an entry from 2007, but other than the three mentioned here all of the first 40 search results that had dates were from 2010, so I have concluded this is a relatively new word. Where did it come from?
Someone else will need to do more research to ultimately determine where the word come from. It seems to have appeared recently, and is likely a combining of two Greek words. In Michael Fontaine’s book, “Funny Words in Plautine Comedy”, published by Oxford University Press in 2010, he writes “Ancient theorists call this facetious and sudden reversal of expectations a para prosdokian (Greek para prosdokian, Latin praeter exspectationem, ‘contrary to expectation, surprise turn, switcheroo’.)” Discussions of classical literature have numerous references to the phrase para prosdokian (two separate Greek words). It seems that only recently have the words been combined into one and become descriptive of the same technique in English comedy as was used frequently in classical Greek and even in Shakespeare. Sorry, but that’s the best I can do.
Speaking of comedy, there is a great site called Uncyclopedia, and a wonderful “history” of Paraprosdokian that I highly encourage you read. (It alters Rogers’ phrase at the beginning by saying Paraprosdokian was not a citizen of any organized nation – he was Greek. Another line – “He was a skilled archer, although he did occasionally miss his wife.”)
More on Buckley's words on Sunday...
Para prosdokian is indeed two separate words in Greek. Para in this case means "contrary to, against" and prosdokia is the Greek word for "expectation, what you would expect". Greek doesn't have a word for "surprise" so this is as close as they can get. (You could quibble that "contrary to expectation" and "surprising" are two different things. I agree. But there we are.)
ReplyDeleteStrictly speaking para prosdokian is a prepositional phrase; para is the preposition, and prosdokian is the object-form, or accusative case, of the noun prodokia.
The reason you see it spelled as one or two words is because it's hard to know what to do with it in English. It's the same with things like percent (in Latin per centum, "through one hundred," is two words, likewise a prepositional phrase). In Greek the two would always be written as two words, but the whole thing can be turned into an adjective by adding the definite article (e.g. ho logos ho para prosdokian would mean "the surprising word").
The term is found at least as early as the 3rd century BC, and was probably used by Aristotle.
Whoops -- I mean "...prosdokian is the object-form, or accusative case, of the noun prosdokia".
ReplyDeleteInterestingly enough, prosdokia is ultimately an example of a prepositional phrase that became a noun (pros means "toward", the root dok means "thinking about," and is found in words like dogma).