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Comedians seem to use phrases that employ this type of sentence structure - is there a name for it?

Examples of Groucho Marx's one liners seem to fit this pattern — and if memory serves, Emo Philips.

  • One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas, how he got in my pajamas, I don't know.

  • I've had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it.

RegDwigнt
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1 Answers1

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This is called paraprosdokian.

A paraprosdokian (from Greek "παρα-", meaning "beyond" and "προσδοκία", 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 or reinterpret 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.1

You'll find exactly the example you mentioned on the page linked above.

Here's one of my favorite examples among the many they list:

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it." — Groucho Marx

Robusto
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    Excellent answer. Wikipedia's list also includes my favorite example: "I haven't slept for ten days, because that would be too long." — Mitch Hedberg – Andy Mar 03 '11 at 19:33
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    Saturday Night Live's "Jack Handy's Deep Thoughts" were uniformly of this sort, e.g., "“It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man.” http://goo.gl/bScFf – The Raven Mar 03 '11 at 19:54
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    Many of George Carlin's best jokes are paraprosdokian as well ("I’ve always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific"); others who are known for the form are Stephen Wright ("I saw a subliminal advertising executive, but only for a second") and Mitch Hedburg ("I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it") – Joseph Weissman Mar 03 '11 at 22:00
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    Saki had one too, "She was a good cook as cooks go, and as cooks go, she went." – Chinmay Kanchi Mar 03 '11 at 22:08
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    William Casselman asserts that paraprosdokian is a bogus, sloppily constructed word of recent origin and says "Educated people call these: 'sentences with surprise endings'." – mgkrebbs Mar 04 '11 at 05:28
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    @mgkrebbs: Well, clearly William Casselman has no sense of humor. – Robusto Mar 04 '11 at 11:28
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    At some point, someone had to give it a name. People like to name things. I would have hoped, though, that someone could have come up with a word shorter than "paraprosdokian" for it, or at least something that rolls off the tongue a little easier. – Andy Mar 04 '11 at 20:34
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    Does this fit the pattern? "Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana." – thursdaysgeek Mar 30 '11 at 21:00
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    Casselman's definition seems wrong. "The cat stalked stealthily toward the mouse, then lay down and died" has a surprise ending, but doesn't "causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part". Casselman apparently tried to be clever by providing a short phrase for paraprosdokian, but failed to capture the meaning of the term. – LarsH Apr 21 '11 at 20:35
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    Casselman comes off as arrogant, overreactive, and not particularly well-informed himself. His inability to engage in civil dialogue lowers my confidence in his objectivity, as does his tendency to take cheap shots: "One little Britlet has written to say there are only 2 Greek roots in the word. Oh? Para (1) + pros (2) + dok (3) + ia (4). Are they not still teaching simple addition at Whitechapel's Wanksome Hall?" Incidentally -ia[n] is a suffix, not a root, and pros is debatable: a prefix here more than a root, though it can also be a preposition. – LarsH Apr 21 '11 at 20:56
  • What a vile blog entry, but at least it gave me Stercus tauri – mplungjan Apr 27 '11 at 17:03
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    One of my faves: Polyamory is wrong! (Polyphilia is fine, and so is multiamory, but never mix your Greek and Latin roots.) As for Casselman's cited blog, I was surprised; I initially found his quote rather clever and funny, thinking it must have been intended as tongue-in-cheek, only to read further and find it in the middle of an apoplectic rant. Seemed very antiparaprosdokian to me. – J.R. May 05 '12 at 01:03
  • I have always heard these referred to as garden path sentences. – redjives Aug 03 '13 at 23:06
  • Bill Casselman closed his .com site on 7/2016 but you can find it archived on web.archive.org or follow his newer stuff on https://www.wordingroom.com/home – smci Jan 14 '18 at 20:08
  • See "I’ve Had a Perfectly Wonderful Evening, But This Wasn’t It" for the origin of the quip. – DjinTonic Sep 06 '21 at 15:06