It’s another rhetorical device this week. Wait, come back! It’s a good ‘un, I promise, despite the rather alarming spelling. A paraprosdokian is a figure of speech in which the second half of the sentence is so surprising or unexpected, it causes you to reframe or reinterpret the first part. Which is a very long-winded way of saying that it makes you do a double take.
In case you’re still not sure what I’m banging on about, here are some famous examples of paraprosdokian in action:
‘I had a wonderful evening, but this wasn't it.’
‘There are three kinds of people in the world: those who can count, and those who can't.’
‘To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.’
‘I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather – not screaming in terror like his passengers.’ (My personal favourite – thanks to Bob Monkhouse for this banger.)
Geddit? Paraprosdokian plays a trick on how human brains process language. As we read or listen to a sentence, our minds predict how it’ll end based on the context. A paraprosdokian deliberately feeds your brain a familiar setup, lets you walk down that path, then pulls the rug out from under you with a surprise twist. (Not sure why there’s a rug on a path, but you get what I mean.)
As you’ve probably already guessed from the spelling, ‘paraprosdokian’ (which is pronounced para-proz-DOH-kee-un, in case you’re planning to try to impress someone with it later) comes from Ancient Greek. It’s made up of three bits:
para- (παρά), meaning ‘against’, ‘beyond’ or ‘contrary to’
pros- (πρός), a prefix meaning ‘toward’ or ‘in addition’
dokian (δοκία) which comes from dokein (δοκεῖν), meaning ‘to expect’, ‘to think’ or ‘to seem’.
Put it altogether and you get ‘against expectation’ or ‘contrary to what was expected’.
In a neat little twist, paraprosdokian isn’t really what it seems though. While ancient Greek rhetoricians may well have used the technique, the term isn’t actually old at all. In fact, it first appeared in 1896, although no one seems to be sure which smartarse actually coined it.