[Lexicog] Re: yoked

[Scott]

In my 11th grade American Lit class we studied "Mary Lou Wingate" as a
selection from John Brown's Body.

            When I pointed that the lines "She knew her Bible and how to
flirt" formed a figure of speech, the teacher

challenged me.  When I identified the figure as a 'zeugma,' she stated that
she had never heard of a zeugma.

I then suggested that she should send herself to the Principal's office (she
had sent me the previous year for not 

knowing the word 'metaphor')  I  had heard her asked me what was a meadow
for and had answered "for cows 

to graze, I reckon."   When she declined to send herself to the Principal's
office, I wrote a large note referring 

her.  The Principal called us both in and decided that her for not knowing a
zeugma was worse than my not 

knowing what a meadow was for.  She had to apologize to me in class for
sending me to the office the previous 

year and for her not knowing what a zeugma was.  The alternative was for her
to read a letter to the Editor in the 

local tabloid.  

 

Zeugma is often found in the works of serious writers such as Shakespeare,
Dickens, and Goldsmith.

 

One of Benjamin Franklin's more quoted statements "We must all hang together
or, most assuredly, we shall 

all hang separately" and Shakespeare's famous line "Kill all the boys and
the luggage'" are definitely not comic 

although Ben's is indeed witty.  The only zeugma that I thought detracted
from the context was from one of

my favorite poets, Houseman: "He went and told the sexton and the sexton
tolled the bell."

 

The modern quips "she had all of the virtues save virtue," "she exhausted
her repertoire and her audience," and 

"'Up to Parr' isn't" could be considered comic although the last cost Parr
his talk show. 

 

I should point out that 'zeugma' in English is not a single figure of speech
but a class of figures.

 

Scott Catledge

 

 

Scott Catledge

Professor Emeritus

Colm Dubh H.E.

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lexicography/attachments/20080103/9fd2f920/attachment.htm>