{"id":387,"date":"2014-10-24T16:06:10","date_gmt":"2014-10-24T16:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/writingcenter\/?p=387"},"modified":"2014-10-24T17:46:16","modified_gmt":"2014-10-24T17:46:16","slug":"a-public-service-announcement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/writingcenter\/2014\/10\/24\/a-public-service-announcement\/","title":{"rendered":"A Public Service Announcement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/tigerbloodtuzzi.files.wordpress.com\/2011\/05\/julien-shaking-head.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"285\" height=\"214\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/media0.giphy.com\/media\/TseBjMu53JgWc\/giphy.gif\" alt=\"angry animated GIF \" width=\"213\" height=\"216\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>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.\u00a0 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:\u00a0 paronomasia. \u00a0My first attack of paronomasia occurred during naptime when I was in kindergarten.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What Is It?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Paronomasiacs are obsessed with a form of word play that suggests multiple meanings for a single phrase by exploiting:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>the various meanings of words, and<\/li>\n<li>the similar sounds of certain words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Cases of paronomasia can be classified into three common, but distinctive varieties.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Homophonic<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>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 \u201cI work as a baker because I knead the dough,\u201d the word \u2018knead\u2019 appears in place of its homonym \u2018need\u2019, altering the common phrase &#8220;need the dough.&#8221; \u00a0\u00a0Hilarious!\u00a0 Right?\u00a0 If you think so, I encourage you to see a doctor at your earliest convenience.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Homographic<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>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, \u00a0\u201cA blind man picked up a hammer and\u00a0<em>saw.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0 This paronomasiacal example relies on \u2018<em>saw\u2019s<\/em>\u2019 ability to function as both a noun and a verb. \u00a0\u00a0Have you ever tried to tuna fish?\u00a0 Most people I know find this phrase so funny that they bypass the \u2018groan as laughter\u2019 and clench their teeth tightly together in order to avoid laughing.\u00a0 It\u2019s a neat trick that really works.\u00a0 Feel free to use it whenever necessary.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Homonymic<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>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!\u00a0 The statement &#8220;Being in politics is just like playing golf: you are trapped in one bad lie after another&#8221; plays with the two meanings of the word lie as \u2018a deliberate untruth\u2019 AND as \u2018the position in which something rests\u2019. \u00a0Friends 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.\u00a0 I have often cleared a room and sat in admiration of my own rhetorical brilliance.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Sufferers of paronomasia often operate under the delusion that their word butchery is clever, witty, and a source of humor for those around them.\u00a0 They often lose the ability to discern the sound of groans from the sounds of laughter.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n<p>While there is no current cure for paronomasia, sufferers (those around the paronomasiac) can minimize outbursts in three ways:\u00a0 1.) Avoid conversations with the afflicted that encourage \u2018clever\u2019 and \u2018witty\u2019 repartee, 2.) Interrupt paronomasiacs often, thus derailing their train of thought, and 3.) Keep a roll of duct tape handy.<\/p>\n<p>And that, my friends is the blog topic for today.\u00a0 As a recovering paronomasiac, I would like to think that I have conquered my affliction.\u00a0 I\u2019m 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.<\/p>\n<p>Remember, paronomasia is not punny.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; 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.\u00a0 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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/writingcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/writingcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/writingcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/writingcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/writingcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/writingcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":395,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/writingcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387\/revisions\/395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/writingcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/writingcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/writingcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}