A time to weep and a time to laugh.
—Ecclesiastes 3:4
My friend Allen Isbell introduced me to a word I’d never seen: paraproskokian.
“A paraproskokian,” Allen explained, “is a figure of speech in which the latter part of the sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or hearer to reinterpret the first part. It is frequently used for humorous effect.”
Allen gave these examples:
If I agreed with you, we would both be wrong.
You do not need a parachute to sky-dive. You only need a parachute to sky-dive twice.
I found a few others:
Standing in the park today, I was wondering why a frisbee looks larger the closer it gets—then it hit me.
The company accountant is shy and retiring. He’s shy a quarter of a million dollars—that’s why he’s retiring.
(A few more tomorrow)
You don’t stop laughing because you grow old.
You grow old because you stop laughing.