An Old Antanaclasis
Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana. ---possibly first said by Anthony Oettinger, computer scientist, in the mid 1960s.
This quote is often attributed to Groucho Marx, but there is no solid sourcing evidence to link it to Marx, as much as I like Groucho Marx's body of work. It is believed that Oettinger developed this phrase to show the limits of computer processing. The "joke" comes from the word "like" being used in two different ways. This sort of humor arises from the literary and philosophic subdiscipline of "rhetoric." Antanaclasis Comes from a Greek compound word: ἀντανάκλασις, antanáklasis, meaning "reflection." It breaks down into ἀντί anti [a preposition familiar to us in English], "against"; ἀνά ana, "up"; and κλάσις klásis "breaking" or "fracturing." Using this form in humor relies on a single word or phrase being repeated different senses. Such humor falls under the broad category of "puns."
1 comment:
Ok, Groucho is always good. I was just going to say that time does indeed fly & I finally got a blogroll posted. Got you listed, BTW.
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