'Pareidolia' and other fancy Greek words for common happenings
I聽have seen some weighty-sounding listicles lately: 鈥淢ore Paraprosdokians鈥� and 鈥�30 Examples of Pareidolia.鈥� These multisyllabic Greek words may look fancy and be hard to pronounce, but they refer to two things that are perfect for online sharing.聽
A paraprosdokian (pronounced par a proz doe kee an) is a sentence with an unexpected ending, usually employed for comic effect.聽Pareidolia (pronounced par a doe lee a) is 鈥渢he tendency to perceive a specific, often meaningful image in a random or ambiguous visual pattern,鈥� according to Merriam-Webster 鈥� seeing New Hampshire鈥檚 Old Man of the Mountain in a cliff face, for example. 聽
Examples of pareidolia have been making the rounds on the internet for years, but got a bump this summer when a photographer snapped a picture of a wave off the coast of Britain. The wave looks so much like the face of a wrathful water god that the BBC reported on it: 鈥溾�楴eptune鈥� appears in the waves during storm in Newhaven.鈥� Pareidolia is a very old phenomenon, but the word itself is fairly recent. It was coined in Germany in the 19th century, from the Greek para- (鈥渂eyond鈥�) and eidolon (鈥渋mage鈥�), and first appeared in English in 1962, a highfalutin word for a very common experience. 聽
Paraprosdokian is also formed from para- plus prosdokia (鈥渆xpectation鈥�). Some of these sentences with twist endings are famous, like Henny Youngman鈥檚 鈥淭ake my wife 鈥� please!鈥� The audience thinks 鈥渢ake my wife鈥� introduces an example, that he鈥檚 going to go on to talk about something she does or says. Ending with 鈥減lease!鈥� makes us revisit the beginning to understand it as a command 鈥� 鈥渢ake her away!鈥� Comics have been enamored of the technique, from Groucho Marx (鈥淚鈥檝e had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn鈥檛 it.鈥�) to Stephen Colbert (鈥淚f I am reading this graph correctly 鈥� I鈥檇 be very surprised.鈥�) to Bertrand Russell (鈥淲ar does not determine who is right, only who is left.鈥�)
Etymologist Bill Casselman deplores the word paraprosdokian, arguing that, though it resembles classical terms for rhetorical techniques, it is an ugly neologism that was 鈥渦nknown to ancient Greek or Latin rhetoric.鈥� He makes a big deal over a little space, however, as para prosdokian does appear in ancient Greek rhetorical handbooks, and was called praeter exspectationem in Latin.聽
Aristotle himself explains how humor arises when expectations are violated, and gives an example: 鈥淥nward he came, and his feet were shod with his 鈥� chilblains.鈥� Listeners would have expected 鈥渟andals,鈥� but they got 鈥渃hilblains.鈥澛�
Take my ancient Greek philosopher, please!聽
