meaning and in another are colorless. There may be two different
derivatives from the same root, one of which may develop into a word
with a full meaning while the other may become a colorless suffix or
prefix, and yet both may have the same sound. The similarity of sound
between a word having full meaning and one whose meaning is colorless
may also be accidental. In both cases the technique of wit can make use
of such relationship of the speech material. The following examples
illustrate some of these points.
“_Do you call a man kind who remits nothing to his family while away?_”
asked an actor. “_Call that kindness?_” “_Yes, unremitting kindness_,”
was the reply of Douglas Jerrold. The wit here depends on the first
syllable _un_ of the word _unremitting_. Un is usually a prefix denoting
“not,” but by adding it to “remitting” a new relationship is
unexpectedly established which changes the meaning of the context. “_An
undertaker is one who always carries out what he undertakes._” The
striking character upon which the wit here depends is the manifold
application of the words _undertaker_ and _carry out_. Undertaker
commonly denotes one who manages funerals. Only when taken in this sense
and using the words _carry out_ literally is the sentence witty. The wit
lies in the manifold application of the same words.
_Double Meaning and Play on Words_
If we delve more deeply into the variety of “manifold application” of
the same word we suddenly notice that we are confronted with forms of
“double meaning” or “plays on words” which have been known a long time
and which are universally acknowledged as belonging to the technique of
wit. Then why have we bothered our brains about discovering something
new when we could just as well have gleaned it from the most superficial
treatise on wit? We can say in self-defense only that we are presenting
another side of the same phenomena of verbal expressions. What the
authors call the “playful” character of wit we treat from the point of
view of “manifold application.”
Further examples of manifold application which may also be designated
under a new and third group, the class of double meaning, may be divided
into subdivisions. These, to be sure, are not essentially differentiated
from one another any more than the whole third group from the second. In
the first place we have:
(a) Cases of double meaning of a name and its verbal significance: e.g.,
“_Discharge thyself of our company, Pistol_” (_Henry IV_, Act II). “_For
Suffolk’s duke may he suffocate_” (_Henry IV_, Act I). Heine says,
“_Here in Hamburg rules not the rascally Macbeth, but Banko_ (Banquo).”
In those cases where the unchanged name cannot be used,—one might say
“misused,”—one can get a double meaning by means of familiar slight
modifications: “_Why have the French rejected Lohengrin?_” was a
question asked some time ago. The answer was, “_On Elsa’s_ (Alsace)
_account._”
(b) Cases where a double meaning is obtained by using a word which has
both a verbal and metaphoric sense furnish an abundant source for the
technique of wit. A medical colleague, who was well known for his wit,
once said to Arthur Schnitzler, the writer: “_I am not at all surprised
that you became a great poet. Your father had already held up the mirror
to his contemporaries._” The mirror used by the father of the writer,
the famous Dr. Schnitzler, was the laryngoscope. According to the
well-known quotation from _Hamlet_ (Act III, Scene 2), the object of the
play as well as the writer who creates it is to “hold, as’t were, the
mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own
image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.”
(c) Cases of actual double meaning or play on words—the ideal case, as
it were, of manifold application. Here no violence is done to the word.
It is not torn into syllables. It need not undergo any modifications. It
need not exchange its own particular sphere, say as a proper name, for
another. Thanks to certain circumstances it can express two meanings
just as it stands in the structure of the sentence. Many examples are at
our disposal.
One of the first royal acts of the last Napoleon was, as is well known,
the confiscation of the estates belonging to the House of Orleans.
“_C’est le premier vol de l’aigle_” was an excellent play on words
current at that time. “Vol” means both flight and theft. Louis XV wished
to test the wit of one of his courtiers whose talent in that direction
he had heard about. He seized his first opportunity to command the
cavalier to concoct a joke at his (the king’s) expense. He wanted to be
the “subject” of the witticism. The courtier answered him with the
clever _bonmot_, “_Le roi n’est pas sujet._” “Subject” also means
“vassal.” (Taken from K. Fischer.)
_A physician, leaving the sick-bed of a wife, whose husband accompanied
him, exclaimed doubtfully: “I do not like her looks.” “I have not liked
her looks for a long time,” was the quick rejoinder of the husband._ The
physician, of course, referred to the condition of the wife, but he
expressed his apprehension about the patient in such words as to afford
the husband the means of utilizing them to assert his conjugal aversion.
Concerning a satirical comedy Heine remarked: “_This satire would not
have been so biting had the author of it had more to bite._” This jest
is a better example of metaphoric and common double meaning than of real
play upon words, but at present we are not concerned about such strict
lines of demarcation. _Charles Matthews, the elder, one of England’s
greatest actors, was asked what he was going to do with his son_ (the
young man was destined for architecture). “_Why_,” answered the
comedian, “_he is going to draw houses like his father_.” _Foote once
asked a man why he forever sang one tune. “Because it haunts me,”
replied the man. “No wonder,” said Foote, “you are continually murdering
it.”_ Said the Dyspeptic Philosopher: “_One swallow doesn’t make a
summer, nor quench the thirst._”
_A gentleman had shown much ingenuity in evading a notorious borrower
whom he had sent away many times with the request to call when he was
“in.” One day, however, the borrower eluded the servant at the door and
cornered his victim._
_“Ah,” said the host, seeing there was no way out of it, “at last I am
in.”_
_“No,” returned the borrower in anticipation, “at last I am in and you
are out.”_
Heine said in the _Harzreise_: “_I cannot recall at the moment the names
of all the students, and among the professors there are some who have no
name as yet._”
Dr. Johnson said of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, which was
poor in purse, but prolific in the distribution of its degrees: “_Let it
persevere in its present plan and it may become rich_ by degrees.” Here
the wit depends more on the manifold application than on the play on
words.
The keen-witted writer, Horatio Winslow, sums up the only too-familiar
history of some American families as follows:
A TALE OF TWO AMERICAN GENERATIONS
_Gold Mine
Gold Spoon
Gold Cure_
The last couplet, gold cure, refers to the familiar cure for alcoholism.
This wit is an excellent example of unification—everything is, as it
were, of gold. The manifold meanings of the adjective which do not very
strikingly contrast with one another make possible this “manifold
application.”
_Ambiguity_
Another play on words will facilitate the transition to a new
subdivision of the technique of double meaning. The witty colleague who
was responsible for the joke mentioned on page 42 is likewise
responsible for this joke, current during the trial of Dreyfus:
“_This girl reminds me of Dreyfus. The army does not believe in her
innocence._”
The word innocence, whose double meaning furnishes the basis of the
witticism, has in one connection the customary meaning which is the
opposite of guilt or transgression, while in the other connection it has
a sexual sense, the opposite of which is sexual experience. There are
very many such examples of double meaning and in each one the point of
the joke refers especially to a sexual sense. The group could be
designated as “ambiguous.” _A good example to illustrate this is the
story told of a wealthy but elderly gentleman who showed his devotion to
a young actress by many lavish gifts. Being a respectable girl she took
the first opportunity to discourage his attentions by telling him that
her heart was already given to another man. “I never aspired as high as
that,” was his polite answer._
If one compares this example of double-meaning-with-ambiguity with other
examples one cannot help noticing a difference which is not altogether
inconsequential to the technique. In the joke about “innocence” one
meaning of the word is just as good for our understanding of it as the
other. One can really not decide whether the sexual or non-sexual
significance of the word is more applicable and more familiar. But it is
different with the other example mentioned. Here the final sense of the
words, “I never aspired as high as that,” is by far more obtrusive and
covers and conceals, as it were, the sexual sense which could easily
escape the unsuspecting person. In sharp contrast to this let us examine
another example of double meaning in which there is no attempt made to
veil its sexual significance—e.g., Heine’s characterization of a
complaisant lady: “_She could pass (abschlagen) nothing except her
water._” It sounds like an obscene joke and the wit in it is scarcely
noticed.[28] But the peculiarity that both senses of the double meaning
are not equally manifested can occur also in witticisms without sexual
reference providing that one sense is more common or that it is
preferred on account of its connection with the other parts of the
sentence (e.g., _c’est le premier vol de l’aigle_). All these examples I
propose to call double meaning with allusion.
We have by this time become familiar with such a large number of
different techniques of wit that I am afraid we may lose sight of them.
Let us, therefore, attempt to make a summary.
I. CONDENSATION
(a) with mixed word-formation.
(b) with modification.
II. THE APPLICATION OF THE SAME MATERIAL
(c) The whole and the part.
(d) Change of order.
(e) Slight modification.
(f) The same words used in their full or colorless sense.
III. DOUBLE MEANING
(g) Name and verbal significance.
(h) Metaphorical and verbal meaning.
(i) True double meaning (play on words).
(j) Ambiguous meaning.
(k) Double meaning with allusion.
This variety causes confusion. It might vex us because we have devoted
so much time to the consideration of the technical means of wit, and the
stress laid on the forms might possibly arouse our suspicions that we
are overvaluing their importance so far as the knowledge of the nature
of wit is concerned. But this conjecture is met by the one irrefutable
fact: namely, that each time the wit disappears as soon as we remove the
effect that was brought to expression by these techniques. We are thus
directed to search for the unity in this variety. It must be possible to
bring all these techniques under one head. As we have remarked before,
it is not difficult to unite the second and third groups, for the double
meaning, the play on words, is nothing but the ideal case of utilizing
the same material. The latter is here apparently the more comprehensive
conception. The examples of dividing, changing the order of the same
material, manifold application with slight modifications (c, d, e)—all
these could, without difficulty, be subordinated under the conception of
double meaning. But what community exists between the technique of the
first group—condensation with substitutive formation—and the two other
groups—manifold application of the same material?
_The Tendency to Economy_
It seems to me that this agreement is very simple and clear. The
application of the same material is only a special case of condensation
and the play on words is nothing but a condensation without substitutive
formation. Condensation thus remains as the chief category. A
compressing or—to be more exact—an economic tendency controls all these
techniques. As Prince Hamlet says: “Thrift, Horatio, thrift.” It seems
to be all a matter of economy.
Let us examine this economy in individual cases. “_C’est le premier vol
de l’aigle._” That is, the first flight of the eagle. Certainly, but it
is a depredatious flight. Luckily for the gist of this joke “vol”
signifies flight as well as depredation. Has nothing been condensed and
economized by this? Certainly, the entire second thought, and it was
dropped without any substitution. The double sense of the word “vol”
makes such substitution superfluous, or what is just as correct: The
word “vol” contains the substitution for the repressed thought without
the necessity of supplementing or varying the first sentence. Therein
consists the benefit of the double meaning.
Another example: _Gold mine_,—_gold spoon_, the enormous economy of
expression the single word “gold” produces. It really tells the history
of two generations in the life of some American families. The father
made his fortune through hard toiling in the gold fields during the
early pioneer days. The son was born with a golden spoon in his mouth;
having been brought up as the son of a wealthy man, he becomes a chronic
alcoholic and has to take the gold cure.
Thus there is no doubt that the condensation in these examples produces
economy and we shall demonstrate that the same is true in all cases.
Where is the economy in such jokes as “_Rousseau_—_roux et sot_,” or
“_Antigone_—_antique-oh-nay_” in which we first failed to find the prime
factors in causing us to establish the technique of the manifold
application of the same material? In these cases condensation will
naturally not cover the ground, but when we exchange it for the broader
conception of “economy” we find no difficulty. What we save in such
examples as those just given is quite obvious. We save ourselves the
trouble of making a criticism, of forming a judgment. Both are contained
in the names. The same is true in the “_livelihood_” example and the
others thus far analyzed. Where one does not save much is in the example
of “_I am in and you are out_,” at least the wording of a new answer is
saved. The wording of the address, “_I am in_,” serves also for the
answer. It is little, but in this little lies the wit. The manifold
application of the same words in addressing and answering surely comes
under the heading of economy. Note how Hamlet sums up the quick
succession of the death of his father and the marriage of his mother:
“the funeral baked meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.”
But before we accept the “tendency to economize” as the universal
character of wit and ask whence it originates, what it signifies, and
how it gives origin to the resultant pleasure, we shall concede a doubt
which may justly be considered. It may be true that every technique of
wit shows the tendency to economize in expression, but the relationship
is not reversible. Not every economy in expression or every brevity is
witty on that account. We once raised this question when we still hoped
to demonstrate the condensation process in every witticism and at that
we justly objected by remarking that a laconism is not necessarily wit.
Hence it must be a peculiar form of brevity and economy upon which the
character of the wit depends, and just as long as we are ignorant of
this peculiarity the discovery of the common element in the technique of
wit will bring us no nearer a solution. Besides, we have the courage to
acknowledge that the economies caused by the technique of wit do not
impress us as very much. They remind one of the manner in which many a
housewife economizes when she spends time and money to reach a distant
market because the vegetables can there be had a cent cheaper. What does
wit save by means of its technique? Instead of putting together a few
new words, which, for the most part, could have been accomplished
without any effort, it goes to the trouble of searching for the word
which comprises both ideas. Indeed, it must often at first transform the
expression of one of the ideas into an unusual form until it furnishes
an associative connection with the second thought. Would it not have
been simpler, easier, and really more economical to express both
thoughts as they happen to come even if no agreement in expression
results? Is not the economy in verbal expression more than abrogated
through the expenditure of intellectual work? And who economized through
it, whom does it benefit? We can temporarily circumvent these doubts by
leaving them unsolved until later on. Are we really familiar enough with
all the forms of techniques of wit? It will surely be safer to gather
new examples and submit them to analysis.
_Puns_
Indeed, we have not yet given consideration to one of the largest groups
into which the techniques of wit may be divided. In this we have perhaps
been influenced by the low estimate in which this form of wit is held.
It embraces those jokes which are commonly called “puns.” These are
generally counted as the lowest form of wit, perhaps because they are
“cheapest” and can be formed with the least effort. They really make the
least demands on the technique of expression just as the actual play on
words makes the most. Whereas in the latter both meanings find
expression in the identical word, and hence usually in a word used only
once, in the pun it is enough if two words for both meanings resemble
each other through some slight similarity in structure, in rhythmic
consonance, in the community of several vowels, or in some other similar
manner. The following examples illustrate these points:
“We are now fallen into that critical age wherein _censores_ liberorum
are become _censores librorum_: _Lectores_, _Lictores_.”
Professor Cromwell says that Rome in exchanging her religion changed
_Jupiter_ to _Jew Peter_.
_It is related that some students wishing to play a trick on Agassiz,
the great naturalist, constructed an insect made up of parts taken from
different bugs and sent it to him with the question, “What kind of a bug
is this?” His answer was “Humbug.”_
Puns are especially fond of modifying one of the vowels of the word;
e.g., Hevesi (_Almanaccando, Reisen in Italien_, p. 87) says of an
Italian poet who was hostile to the German emperor, but who was,
nevertheless, forced to sing his praises in his hexameters, “_Since he
could not exterminate the Cæsars he at least annihilated the cæsuras_.”
From the multitude of puns which are at our disposal it may be of
special interest to us to quote a really poor example for which Heine
(_Book Le Grand_, Chapter V) is responsible. _After parading for a long
time before his lady as an “Indian Prince” the suitor suddenly lays
aside his mask and confesses, “Madam, I have lied to you. I have never
been in Calcutta any more than that Calcutta roast which I relished
yesterday for lunch.”_ Obviously the fault of this witticism lies in the
fact that both words are not merely similar, but identical. The bird
which served as a roast for his lunch is called so because it comes
from, or at least is supposed to come from, the same city of Calcutta.
K. Fischer has given much attention to this form of wit and insists upon
making a sharp distinction between it and the “play on words” (p. 78).
“A pun,” he says, “is a bad play on words, for it does not play with the
word as a word, but merely as a sound.” The play on words, however,
“transfers itself from the sound of the word into the word itself.” On
the other hand, he also classifies such jokes as “famillionaire,
Antigone (Antique-Oh-nay),” etc., with sound-wit. I see no necessity to
follow him in this. In the plays on words, also, the word serves us only
as a sound to which this or that meaning attaches itself. Here also
usage of language makes no distinction, and when it treats “puns” with
disdain but the play on words with a certain respect it seems that these
estimations are determined by others as technical viewpoints. One should
bear in mind the forms of wit which are referred to as puns. There are
persons who have the ability, when they are in a high-spirited mood, to
reply with a pun for a long time to every sentence addressed to them.
Brill[29] relates that at a gathering some one spoke disparagingly of a
certain drama and wound up by saying, _“It was so poor that the first
act had to be rewritten.” “And now it is rerotten,” added the punster of
the gathering._
At all events we can already infer from the controversies about the line
of demarcation between puns and play on words that the former cannot aid
us in finding an entirely new technique of wit. Even if no claims are
made for the pun that it utilizes the manifold application of the same
material, the accent, nevertheless, falls upon the rediscovering of the
familiar and upon the agreement between both words forming the pun. Thus
the latter is only a subspecies of the group which reaches its height in
the real play on words.
_Displacements_
There are some witticisms, however, whose techniques baffle almost every
attempt to classify them under any of the groups so far investigated.
_It is related that while Heine and the poet Soulié were once chatting
together in a Parisian drawing-room, there entered one of those
Parisians whom one usually compared to Midas, but not alone on account
of their money. He was soon surrounded by a crowd which treated him with
the greatest deference. “Look over there,” said Soulié to Heine, “and
see how the nineteenth century is worshipping the Golden Calf.” Heine
cast one glance upon the object of adoration and replied, as if
correcting his friend: “Oh, he must be older than that”_ (K. Fischer, p.
82).
Wherein lies the technique of this excellent witticism? According to K.
Fischer it lies in the play on words. Thus, for example, he says, “the
words ‘Golden Calf’ may signify Mammon as well as idol-worship,—in the
first case the gold is paramount; in the second case it is the animal
picture. It may likewise serve to designate in a rather uncomplimentary
way one who has very much money and very little brains.” If we apply the
test and take away the expression “Golden Calf” we naturally also
abrogate the wit. We then cause Soulié to say, “Just see how the people
are thronging about that blockhead only because he is rich.” To be sure,
this is no longer witty. Nor would Heine’s answer be possible under
these circumstances. But let us remember that it is not at all a matter
of Soulié’s witty comparison, but of Heine’s retort, which is surely
much more witty. We have then no right to disturb the phrase “the golden
calf” which remains as a basis for Heine’s words and the reduction can
only be applied to the latter. If we dilate upon the words, “Oh, he must
be older than that,” we can only proceed as follows:
“Oh, he is no longer a calf; he is already a full-grown ox.” Heme’s wit
is therefore based on the fact that he no longer took the “golden calf”
metaphorically, but personally by referring it to the moneyed individual
himself. If this double meaning is not already contained in the opinion
of Soulié!
Let us see. We believe that we can state that this reduction has not
altogether destroyed Heine’s joke, but, on the contrary, it has left its
essential element untouched. It reads as if Soulié were now saying,
“Just see how the nineteenth century is worshipping the golden calf,”
and as if Heine were retorting, “Oh, he is no longer a calf. He is
already an ox.” And even in this reduced form it is still a witticism.
However, another reduction of Heine’s words is not possible.
It is a pity that this excellent example contains such complicated
technical conditions. And as it cannot aid us toward enlightenment we
shall leave it to search for another in which we imagine we can perceive
a relationship with the former one.
It is a “bath” joke treating of the dread which some Jews are said to
have for bathing. We demand no patent of nobility for our examples nor
do we make inquiries about their origin. The only qualifications we
require are that they should make us laugh and serve our theoretical
interest. It is to be remarked that both these demands are satisfied
best by Jewish jokes.
_Two Jews meet near a bathing establishment. “Have you taken a bath?”
asked one. “How is that?” replies the other. “Is one missing?”_