A recent poll of 314 million Americans by the Institute for Impracticable Statistical Studies has found that the average person has one testicle and one breast. Knowing that I am above average in one of those categories has given me the confidence to write a blog post in which I admit my struggles with yet another embarrassing rhetorical affliction: paronomasia. My first attack of paronomasia occurred during naptime when I was in kindergarten. Police were called to the school because I was resisting a rest. With that in mind I think information about this often-misunderstood disease would be of great benefit to the afflicted and those who try to love them.
What Is It?
Paronomasiacs are obsessed with a form of word play that suggests multiple meanings for a single phrase by exploiting:
- the various meanings of words, and
- the similar sounds of certain words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect.
Cases of paronomasia can be classified into three common, but distinctive varieties.
Homophonic
The most frequently occurring variety of paronomasia is homophonic, which uses word pairs that are not synonymous, but sound alike. For example, in the phrase “I work as a baker because I knead the dough,” the word ‘knead’ appears in place of its homonym ‘need’, altering the common phrase “need the dough.” Hilarious! Right? If you think so, I encourage you to see a doctor at your earliest convenience.
Homographic
Those afflicted with Homographic Paronomasia exploit words that are spelled the same, but possess different meanings and sounds. In HP examples, the infected words typically exist in two different parts of speech and often rely on unusual sentence construction, as in the phrase, “A blind man picked up a hammer and saw.” This paronomasiacal example relies on ‘saw’s’ ability to function as both a noun and a verb. Have you ever tried to tuna fish? Most people I know find this phrase so funny that they bypass the ‘groan as laughter’ and clench their teeth tightly together in order to avoid laughing. It’s a neat trick that really works. Feel free to use it whenever necessary.
Homonymic
For chronic sufferers of paronomasia (and those that must associate with them) the homonymic is often the most painful variety because it combines both homophonic and homographic paronomasia into one maddening disorder. In other words, sufferers exploit terms that are both homographs and homophones! The statement “Being in politics is just like playing golf: you are trapped in one bad lie after another” plays with the two meanings of the word lie as ‘a deliberate untruth’ AND as ‘the position in which something rests’. Friends of homonymic paronomasiacs often endure painful merriment so raucous that they must leave the room in order to avoid self-injury from the rib-splitting laughter. I have often cleared a room and sat in admiration of my own rhetorical brilliance.
Conclusion
Sufferers of paronomasia often operate under the delusion that their word butchery is clever, witty, and a source of humor for those around them. They often lose the ability to discern the sound of groans from the sounds of laughter. Friends and coworkers of chronic paronomasiacs often feel as though they have to wade through punch lines when in the presence of their former friend.
While there is no current cure for paronomasia, sufferers (those around the paronomasiac) can minimize outbursts in three ways: 1.) Avoid conversations with the afflicted that encourage ‘clever’ and ‘witty’ repartee, 2.) Interrupt paronomasiacs often, thus derailing their train of thought, and 3.) Keep a roll of duct tape handy.
And that, my friends is the blog topic for today. As a recovering paronomasiac, I would like to think that I have conquered my affliction. I’m all groan up and blogging on my own and I have the feeling that this writing will some day win me fame, new friends to replace those driven away by uncontrolled laughter, and maybe even a no bell prize.
Remember, paronomasia is not punny.