- Perverb
A perverb (
portmanteau of "perverse proverb") is a humorous modification of a knownproverb , usually by changing its ending in a way that surprises or confounds the listener.Perverbs were one of the many experimental styles explored by the French literary movement
Oulipo . The term is attributed toMaxine Groffsky cite web
first = Michael
last = Quinion
year = 2005
title = World Wide Words
url = http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-per1.htm
date = 2005-05-07
accessdate = 2007-09-24] . The concept was popularised by Oulipo collaboratorHarry Mathews in his "Selected Declarations of Dependence " (1977).Variations
plicing of two proverbs
According to Quinion, the word originally meant the result ofsplicing of the beginning of one proverb to the ending of another:
*A rolling stone gets the
worm .
*The road toHell wasn’t paved in a day.
*A fool and hismoney is a friend indeedcite web
title = Perverberations
author = Paul Taylor
year = 2003
url = http://www.nous.org.uk/perverb.html
accessdate = 2007-09-24] .Proverb with surprising or silly ending
The term perverb is also used in the weaker sense of any proverb that was modified to have an unexpected, dumb, amusing, or nonsensical ending — even if the changed version is no harder to parse than the original:
*A rolling stone gathers
momentum .
*All that glitters is not dull.
*Don't put thecart before theaardvark .
*See apin and pick it up, and all day long you'll have a pin.Garden path proverb
The word has also been used to describe a sentence that starts out like a well-known
proverb or other expression, but ends in such an unexpected way that the listener is forced to back up and re-parse several words in order to get its sense, as in agarden path sentence :*You can take a horse to water it down, but be sure to return it.
*Don't count your chickens will do it for you.
*Think before you were born you were already loved.
*While there is life better than while here?
*You can't teach an old dog would be better for your students.
*Time flies like to fly around clocks.To be effective, a written perverb must have correct syntax, spelling, and punctuation, as in the "time flies" example above. Those that require a change in spelling or punctuation, like the "counting chickens" example above, may still qualify as "oral" perverbs.
Pun on a proverb
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