Data-isms(?)

This is a form of word-play that I've encountered in informal fashion in several contexts, mostly related to Star Trek and quotes from Mr. Spock in the Original Series ("TOS") (and other Vulcans) or from Data on Next Generation ("TNG").

It consists of taking a well known saying or aphorism and re-casting it in elaborate sesquipedalian wording. I later discovered a term for this form of wordplay: Pleonasm.

The original example I recall encountering went something like:

Petrous and lignous projectiles may damage my osseous structure; but pejorative appellations shall ever remain innocuous.
(Sticks and stones my break my bones, but names will never hurt me.)

I've come up with several others, see if you can figure out their original forms:

• It is advisable for those residing in vitreous domiciles to refrain from hurling lithic projectiles.
• One should postpone enumeration of one's domestic fowl pending their emergence from their ovoid gestational encasements.
• Avoid over-assiduous examination of the masticatory orifice of a gratuitously acquired equine.
• Avians possessing indistinguishable plumage exhibit gregarious conduct.
• An avian grasped manually is of equivalent value to a pair of such reposing in a deciduous shrub.

Of course it's not only wise sayings that can be so transformed:

• You are hereby invited to introduce the article under consideration into a venue where illumination from our nearest stellar neighbor does not penetrate.

Splendid Spoonerisms

Nooks and Crannies = Crooks and Nannies
Over and done with = Dover and Unwith
Dear Diary = Dire Dearie (Sounds like the name of a Charles Addams collection)
Over the hill = Hover the ill

Perfect Puns

2014-Jun-27
One of my favorite humorous quotes is, I suppose, technically a pun:

Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana.
-- Groucho Marx


Attila the Hen

Den of Inequity

Lists

I've decided that the best way to explore my sense of humor is to create lists of humorous items, updating the lists as I think of or encounter related items in my life.

Wordplay is an important part of my sense of humor, so I'm going to start with lists of:

• spoonerisms
• puns

I think I'll also include lists of what I think are the funniest Movies and TV shows.

What's so funny?

Humor is a big part of my life; it's gotten me through some rough times. So I think it's fitting that I start a blog devoted to humor.

One of the things that sets humans apart from the rest of the animal kingdom is our sense of humor (without getting into arguments on what the biological/neurological origins of it might be).

I think that I personally have a particularly dark and twisted sense of humor. I enjoy dark humor, black humor, gallows humor, humor that intrudes on people's comfort zones regarding culture, society, family, gender.

And don't expect me always to be politically correct; I can laugh at some of the most historically racist/sexist jokes (does that make me bad?).

I think of it as laughing at the stereotype, not at anyone in particular. I also find that there must be a grain of truth or they're not really funny.

And what about jokes where the same implication (stupidity, craftiness, hyper-sexuality) has been applied to a variety of despised minorities over the years?

In that case it seems like the bigoted quality of the humor is only incidental, and it must actually be saying something deeper about the human condition; so it seems a shame to toss it out.

I also laugh at jokes poking fun at myself; my gender (male), ethnicity (waspy), sexuality (straight), my education level (high), my nerdiness and literary pretentions: I engage in equal opportunity ridicule. ;-)