#142 / Change Is Inevitable...

My friend Bruce Bratton publishes a weekly column he calls Bratton Online; plus he does a lot of radio up at KZSC, including his Universal Grapevine. 

The Cruzio Internet  website has a description of what Bruce does, which states the following: 

Description: Santa Cruz's longest running opinion and news column. 33+ years. Featuring links, words, and clicks to local writings. Cartoons by Tim Eagan. Movie critiques, Santa Cruz History, opera, and lots of local political opinions. Subscribe for free.

I never fail to read Bratton Online, and I recommend it. You definitely can't beat the price! One of the reasons I especially like Bruce's column is those "words" that are mentioned in the Cruzio list. 

Vocabulary is a topic I can get pretty excited about, and since I have filled out thousands of blue cards with unusual words, and have faithfully filed them away for ready access, I am always delighted when I turn up a new one. Every once in a while, Bruce obliges my lust for vocabulary, and brings up a word that I have never heard of. That happened recently, in Bruce's April 23- 29, 2014 column. The word?

PARAPROSDOKIANS

Don't be ashamed if you have never heard of it either. It's allied with the word "syllepsis," and even the word "Zeugma."

So what, exactly, is a paraprosdokian?

A paraprosdokian ( /pærəprɒsˈdoʊkiən/) is a kind of wordplay 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 or reinterpret an earlier part. A really good example where the word “right” changes meaning as the sentence is completed. For instance: 

War doesn’t determine who is right, only who is left.

And what about that picture (above)? Well, "change is inevitable, except from a vending machine."

I bet you are starting to get the idea!

Image Credit: 

http://www.corporatecuisinevending.com/healthy-vending-machines-san-francisco.html