Thread: 42 phrases a lexophile would love

I found myself reading some out loud to tit just now. If I'm not mistaken that style of comedy is known as paraprosdokians or garden path sentences. The comedian Emo Philips comes to mind.

Reminds me of a great comedian I admire, and also Groucho Marx


Nah Groucho was the best at those things...

From Wikipedia;

• Where there's a will, I want to be in it.
• Generally speaking, women are.
• The car stopped on a dime, which unfortunately was in a pedestrian's pocket.
• I'm trying... very trying.
• I don't smoke anymore, nor do I smoke any less.
• "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate." — Henry J. Tillman[1]
• "Onward he came, and his feet were shod with his—chilblains." — Aristotle[2]
• "I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat." — Will Rogers[3][4]
• "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it." — Groucho Marx
• "Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana." — Groucho Marx
• "I once shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I don't know." — Groucho Marx
• "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." — Groucho Marx
• "I want to die like my father, quietly, in his sleep—not screaming and terrified like his passengers." — Bob Monkhouse[5]
• "A modest man, who has much to be modest about." — Winston Churchill (of Clement Attlee)[6]
• "I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too." — Mitch Hedberg
• "If you are going through hell, keep going." — Winston Churchill
• "I haven't slept for ten days, because that would be too long." — Mitch Hedberg
• "Take my wife — please." — Henny Youngman[7]
• "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing — after they've exausted every other option." — Winston Churchill
• "I like going to the park and watching the children run around, because they don't know I'm using blanks." — Emo Philips
• "I decided to go into a draconian diet, cutting alcohol, fat, and sugar. In two weeks, I lost 14 days." — Tim Maia
• "I've never seen him so down, or ever before." — Scruffy in Futurama
• "If I could say a few words, I would be a better public speaker." — Homer Simpson[8]
• "We broke up because I caught her lying... under another man." — Doug Benson
• "If I am reading this graph correctly – I would be very surprised." — Stephen Colbert[9]
• "I was expelled from college for cheating. It was very serious, because it was with the dean's wife." — Woody Allen
• "I'm on a whisky diet; I've lost three days already." — Tommy Cooper
• "Mark my words. No, Mark, I really need my words." — Stephen Colbert
• "How can I love you if you won't lie down?" — David Berman

A paraprosdokian (from Greek "πα�α-", meaning "beyond" and "π�οσδοκία", meaning "expectation") is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe the first part. It is frequently used for humorous or dramatic effect, sometimes producing an anticlimax. For this reason, it is extremely popular among comedians and satirists.
An especially clever paraprosdokian not only changes the meaning of an early phrase, but also plays on the double meaning of a particular word, creating a syllepsis.

Garden path sentence

you learn something new every day

Ok I made one:

A classical guitarist went to visit a friend on life support and accidentally tripped on the wire pulling the plug out, he really struck a cord...

nice

Did you hear about the Chef who tried to cut off his assistants hand? The assistant is claiming emotional trauma, headline's in the paper read 'Sous Chef sues Chef'