[MLUG - DISCUSSION] Missouri loves company

[Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

Thought you might find this amusing.  I hadn't heard this saying until I 
saw this t-shirt...

http://www.bustedtees.com/shirt/missouri/male

...but only a few days later, I saw the "example sentence" below.  So I 
guess Harry Truman came up with that one.

Mike


http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/mwwod.pl

The Word of the Day for July 6 is:

paronomasia
o \pair-uh-noh-MAY-zhee-uh\  o noun
: a play on words : pun

Example sentence:
Humorists claim that Harry Truman offered the delightful paronomasia
"Missouri loves company" when he invited a friend to join him in
Independence, Missouri, for a home-cooked meal.

Did you know?
Puns (essentially, humorous uses of words to suggest more than one
interpretation) have their share of critics as well as fans. English
philosopher-poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, for example, called puns
"the lowest form of wit." "Paronomasia," which derives from a Greek
verb meaning "to call with a slight change of name," can simply be a
synonym of "pun." But it can also be used, somewhat playfully, to
suggest an uncontrollable urge to make puns (as if it were a dread
disease, rather than harmless word play). For example, in the July 6,
1980 New York Times, William Safire announced, "an epidemic of
paronomasia has raced around the world." And on January 1, 1989, Jerry
Kobrin of The Orange County Register resolved to seek treatment "for a
near-terminal case of paronomasia."

_______________________________________________
discussion mailing list
EMAIL:PROTECTED
http://mlug.missouri.edu/mailman/listinfo/discussion