Although
nearly every misconception may be represented under the form of false
ratiocination, the imperfection almost always lies in one of the
premises, and it is seldom that there is plainly a fault of argument in
humour. If we claim everything as a fallacy of which there is no
evidence, though there seems to be some, we shall embrace a large
area--part of which is usually assigned to falsity, and if we consider
every mistake to come from wrong deduction, we shall convict mankind of
being so full of fallacies as not to be a rational, but a most illogical
animal. Whately says, "The pun is evidently in most instances a mock
argument founded on a palpable equivocation of the middle term--and
others in like manner will be found to correspond to the respective
fallacies."
A pun is the nearest approach to a mere mock fallacy of form, and we see
what poor amusement it generally affords. To feign that because words
have the same sound, they convey the same thoughts or meanings is a
fiction as transparent as it is preposterous. A word is nothing but an
arbitrary sign, and apart from the thought connected with it, it is an
empty unmeaning sound. The link is too slight in puns, the disparity
between the things they represent as similar, too great--there is too
much falsity. The worst kind of them is where the words are unlike in
spelling, and even somewhat so in sound, and where the same reference
cannot be made to suit both.
Pages:
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360