The
Americans have lately introduced an indifferent kind of it under the
form of an ellipse--an omission of some important matter. Thus, the
editor of a Western newspaper announces that if any more libels are
published about him, there will be several first class funerals in his
neighbourhood. Again, "An old Maine woman undertook to eat a gallon of
oysters for one hundred dollars. She gained fifteen--the funeral costing
eighty-five." Another common form of humorous complication is taking an
expression in a different sense from that it usually bears. "You cannot
eat your cake, and have your cake;" "But how," asks the wilful child,
"am I to eat my cake, if I don't have it?" Thackeray speaks of a young
man who possessed every qualification for success--except talent and
industry.
In many other common forms of speech there are openings for specious
amendments, sometimes for real ones, especially in ironical expressions.
But as in pronunciation we regard usage rather than etymology, so in
sense the true meaning is not the literal or grammatical, but the
conventional. Much indifferent humour is made of question and
answer;--the reply being given falsely, as if the interrogation were put
in a different sense from that intended, an occasion for the quibble
being given by some loose or perhaps literal meaning of the words.
Pages:
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337