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Keeping Up With The Paraprosdokians
Nope. Sorry. It's not a family of do-nothings. A paraprosdokian is a figure of speech, a repartee or a response. The latter part of a paraprosdokian sentence or phrase has a surprising or unexpected ending that is frequently sly, sneaky and humorous.
4 min readJan 28, 2021
Many famous people throughout history have used them including Winston Churchill who was famous for his repartee and clever, witty comebacks to criticism. One of his most famous was his response to the accusation by Mrs. Bessie Braddock, a British Labour Party politician who accused Mr. Churchill of being a drunk. Churchill’s response? “Bessie, you are ugly, and tomorrow morning I shall be sober.”
I must admit, I have read many paraprosdokians over the years, not knowing that was the name for them. I discovered this new-found word in an email from a friend the other day who used it to describe some humorous lines. Seems you are never too old to learn something new.
