Zeugma

: : : : : Hi,
: : : : : I'm trying to come up with a birthday card based on variations of punning phrases. For example, 'How long is a piece of
string' becomes 'How long is a birthday' !he answer will be '"onger than a piece of string.' !here's a substitution involved in
ma#ing the pun.
: : : : : $imilarly, the pun '!ime flies li#e bananas, fruit flies li#e an arrow' involves substitution. !his pun wor#s because it
confuses one meaning of a word with another. I'm trying to thin# of other words that I can do this with, to create a birthday card
that's a series of %uestions &How long, how far,...' whose answers involve play on those words.
: : : : : (ny suggestions
: : : : :::)erhaps psychiatric evaluation.............
: : : !hey don't wor#, do they
: : : !ry 'the penis mightier than the sword' * at least a #nob*gag will usually get a laugh.
: : Here are three sources you might be able to use+
: : ( fat sportsman said, ,-all me anything you li#e, but don't call me late for dinner.,
: : .roucho /ar#s said, ,If you can't leave in a taxi, you can leave in a huff. If you can't leave in a huff, you can leave in a minute
and a huff.,
: : From an earlier thread on this site, ,$he left in a -hevrolet and a huff.,
: Z01./( ** 2Z33.*muh2 noun ** !he use of a word to modify or govern two or more words usually in such a manner that it
applies to each in a different sense or ma#es sense with only one &as in ,opened the door and her heart to the homeless boy,'.
0xample sentence: ,$he left in a huff and a -hevy,, said 4ac#, employing vivid 5eugma to report of /arissa's departure. &!he 6ord
of the 7ay &/erriam*6ebster' for 8ovember 9:, 9;;<.'
"iterary 7evices
!he material in $potlight is sometimes inspired by an e*mail message from a reader. !hat is the case this wee#. .raeme /c=ae
wrote us about 5eugma, and that set off a chain reaction of thoughts about other similar devices. >ut we'll start with that one.
Zeugma is .ree#, as most of the names for literary devices are, having been born in the ancient .ree# tradition of rhetoric.
Zeugma came to 0nglish from "atin. !he =omans, being .recophiles, borrowed the word from the .ree#s, and in .ree# it means
,a yo#ing or ?oining,. (nd to employ 5eugma as a literary device is to ,use a word to modify or govern two or more words,
although its use is grammatically or logically correct with only one,, as in ,7uring the race he bro#e the record and his leg., !he
reader who wrote us about 5eugma was prompted to as# about it by the mention on 8)= &8ational )ublic =adio here in the 1.$.'
of the couplet ,!ime flies li#e an arrow+ fruit flies li#e a banana,. 6e did not thin# that this was technically 5eugma, for the verb
flies in the first sentence becomes a noun in the second, and li#e shifts from an adverb to a verb. Instead, we thin# this is merely
a pun.
Zeugma's brother is #nown as syllepsis, which in .ree# means ,a ta#ing together,, and it is ,a construction in which one word
seems to be in the same relation to two or more other words, but in fact it is not., 6illard 0spy &author of the delightful !he
.arden of 0lo%uence, ( =hetorical >estiary@' confesses that he does not see the difference between syllepsis and 5eugma. He
cites the following examples:
syllepsis: ,In his lectures, he leaned heavily on his des# and stale ?o#es.,
5eugma: ,!he AB:A election proved a lot less than it cost.,
Zeugma dates in 0nglish from AC:D, while syllepsis first turns up in Henry )eacham's .arden of 0lo%uence of ACEE@@. 0spy based
his .arden of 0lo%uence on )eacham's wor#, and he even includes some of )eacham's text in is wor#. 6e'll leave syllepsis and
5eugma at thatF
!here is actually a term for ,a figure of speech in which the word that should come last is placed first, and it's not poor writing. It
is, instead, hysteron proteron, which in .ree# means ,hinder foremost,. $ome of the examples that our dear /r. 0spy gives are
,!he suspect was charged with murder and rape,, ,!he new drug will ward off death and heart attac#s,, and, from $ha#espeare's
(ntony and -leopatra: ,!h'(ntoniad, the 0gyptian admiral, with all their sixty, fly and turn the rudder.,
(nother literary term of which we are fond is synathroesmus. In .ree# it means ,collection,, but in 0nglish it refers to ,the piling
up of ad?ectives,, as in these 0spian examples:
He's a proud, haughty, conse%uential, turned*up*nosed peacoc#.
* -harles 7ic#ens in 8icholas 8ic#leby
1
3f all the bete, clumsy, blundering, boggling, baboon*blooded stuff I ever saw on the human stage, that thing last night beat * as
far as the story and acting went * and of all the affected, sapless, soulless, beginningless, endless, topless, bottomless,
topsyturviest, tuneless, scrannelpipiest * tongs and boniest * doggerel of sounds I ever endured the deadliness of, that eternity of
nothing was the deadliest, as far as its sound went.
* 4ohn =us#in
Gwe ?ust love that oneFH
!he last device we'll discuss today is one that most of our readers will have heard of: sarcasmus or sarcasm. It comes from .ree#
,tearing flesh+ gnashing teeth,. ( portion of the inimitable H.6. Fowler's discussion of sarcasm's meaning also explains its
derivation.
!he essence of sarcasm is the intention of giving pain by &ironical or other' bitter words.
* /odern 0nglish 1sage
6e particularly li#e this example of sarcasm, from acerbic historian )hilip .uedalla:
8o picture of life in -alais was too ludicrous to be believed in 7over+ that is one of the advantages of being an island race.
* $upers and $upermen
I learned the words zeugma and syllepsis in my high school Latin class. I am somewhat confused, as according to the definition and examples I
was given in that class, all the examples you gave of both terms would be syllepsis. What I learned was that they were very similar; the
difference is that sentences with syllepsis, although they appear to have problems, actually become quite witty when you get the pun. It is
therefore something you would want to do. eugma, on the other hand, !ust doesn"t ma#e sense at all, and is something to avoid. $n obvious
example, being the one I used on the final that year, would be %&n 'han#sgiving, we #illed and ate the tur#ey and mashed potatos.% (illing the
mashed potatos) What) $nother example* %+eople were strumming their guitars and trumpets.% 'he example given for syllepsis* %'he wind
carried off his ship and her hopes.% $lthough the verb %carried off% means very different things for each of the nouns in the compound noun,
it still wor#s quite well with each. ,ence, syllepsis.
I might be wrong, but I !ust thought I"d pass on what I"d learned.
-ounds good to us. -eems to be the theme in /spy"s examples, too, though apparently he didn"t catch it 0nor did we.1.
eugma is 0was1 the name of an ancient town in 'ur#ey2it was the sub!ect of a 3ova 0+4-1 broadcast early fall of 5667. 'he city too# its
name from the bridge that yo#ed8!oined both side of the river into one city.
eugma 0or its root, more properly1 is also part of one of the more interesting words in /nglish*
syzygy 0-I2uh2!ee1 noun
0from $ Word a 9ay bac# in :;;<220www.wordsmith.org11
:. $stronomy. /ither of two points in the orbit of a celestial body where the body is in opposition to or in con!unction with the sun. /ither of
two points in the orbit of the moon when the moon lies in a straight line with the sun and /arth. 'he configuration of the sun, the moon, and
/arth lying in a straight line.
5. 'he combining of two feet into a single metrical unit in classical prosody.
=Late Latin syzygia, from >ree# suzugia, union, from suzugos, paired * sun2, syn2 ? zugon, yo#e.@
ugon 0yo#e1 is not quite the same as zeugma, but it seems close enough in spelling and meaning that it must be related. 0Ay #nowledge of
Latin is scant, and I #now even less >ree#.. so I might well be overstepping... you"ll correct me no doubt, if I am.1
'hey are indeed related and come from the Indo2/uropean root Byeug2 %to !oin%. -ome other words from that root are con!ugate, !ugular,
zygote, yuga, and even the !oin words 0co!oin, ad!oin, etc.1.
2