Guest blogged by Peter A. Miller
Cavorting in English
The English language has by no means
a monopoly on wordplay -- and it certainly didn't even start the
phenomenon, but since this is an English language publication, and it's
fun to frolic, I thought I'd take a stroll down part of Wordplay
Avenue and bring you along.
I'm guessing that almost all of us
are familiar with puns. Puns very often make use
of the confusion between similar-sounding words or words with multiple-meanings,
in order to effect humor. Examples would be: "A
gossip is someone with a sense of rumor." ... or " A boiled
egg at breakfast is hard to beat". Puns are often met
with groans, as many people consider this to be very far down on the
humor scale. It might be in its place though, to report to you
that it has been said that "Puns are the lowest form of humor, unless
you made them up yourself."
Oxymorons are descriptive figures
of speech which use contradictory words to make their point. Such
phrases can be: "plastic silverware", "tough love", "controlled
chaos", and "deafening silence".
Ever hear of a Tom Swifty?
They originated in the US in the 1920's from a comic strip character
of the same name. They are a kind of play on words where, for
example, a final adverb lends an amusing double meaning. Examples:
"Fire!" yelled Tom alarmingly" ... and how about
... "I want this statue to look like the Venus de Milo,"
said Tom disarmingly.
In 1775 Richard Brinsley Sheridan wrote
a play, The Rivals, which had a character named Mrs. Malaprop
who frequently mixed up similarly sounding words, to the amusement the
audience. These malapropisms are still alive and well
in the 21st century. Samples include: "It's
not the heat, it's the humility" (i.e., "humidity").
... and "Let's talk about a very tattoo
subject..." (i.e., "taboo").
Consider the palindrome, which
is a word, phrase, or sentence
that reads the same both backwards and forwards. So, the word
"level" is a one-word palindrome. Other multiword specimens:
"Step on no pets." "No, it is opposition".
"Never odd or even." ... and a classic ... "A man,
a plan, a canal -- Panama".
When we rearrange the letters in a word
or phrase to produce a new word or phrase using all the original
letters, and only once, we've create an anagram.
These can be based on single words:
nameless → salesmen ... considerate
→ care is noted ...
Based on phrases:
police protection →
let cop cope in riot
….. the Mona Lisa
→ not hat, a smile . old England →
golden land … silver and gold → grand old evils.
There is even a variety of anagrams dealing
with personal names: Madam Curie → radium came
…. Clint Eastwood → Old West action …and of
course let's not forget, William Shakespeare → we all
make his praise.
This wordplay sampler I've just served
up is only a microscopic speck of all the "recreational English"
that's in existence -- not to mention what you can create and develop
yourself. So if this mini-survey has inspired you to further explore
the realms of "English at play",
then by all means let your creativity flow, and hopefully you'll
share your linguistic adventures with us in an ESCC Newsletter comment
or article of your own.
Happy Holidays!
Pete is president of the English Speaking Community Club of Stockholm, Sweden.
Friday I played a short gig at a workshop for developmentally disabled adults in the west metro. We passed around a wireless microphone, which turned the hour into a group event. More fun than I expected.
Every winter the city of Saint Paul, in partnership with merchants, transforms a block of Market Street downtown into a 
