Wellerism
Wellerism is the internationally used name for a sag word , or example proverb or apologetic proverb . The name goes back to the fictional character of Sam Weller in Charles Dickens' The Pickwickier .
construction
A Wellerism mostly consists of:
- a saying or an eloquent utterance
- a middle section in which the speaker is named
- the description of the situation in which the speech was made.
example
a) “'Every beginning is difficult,' said the thief, then he stole an anvil."
This structure is not necessarily required. The following form of appearance would also be conceivable:
b) "The thief said: 'Every beginning is difficult' and stole an anvil."
This statement is neither false nor unsyntactic. However, the pattern mentioned in a) has solidified and is evident in the majority of Wellerisms.
effect
As in the example above, Wellerisms generally create a surprising, comical phrase when what is said is placed in context. The proverbs or idioms used in the beginning are robbed of their expressiveness and, above all, of their claim to absoluteness, since they form an ironic contrast to the actions of the “speaker”.
literature
- Wolfgang Fleischer: Phraseology of contemporary German. 2nd, revised and supplemented edition. Niemeyer, Tübingen 1997, p. 78f. ISBN 3-484-73032-3 .
- Stanisław Prędota: About German equivalents of Dutch priamels . 2010 ( online ).
Individual evidence
- ↑ quoted from Wolfgang Mieder : Proverbial Aphorisms - From Christoph Lichtenberg to Elazar Benyoëtz , 1999, Edition Praesens, Vienna, p. 161, ISBN 3-7069-0036-X
- ↑ cf. Christine Palm: Phraseology: An Introduction , 1995, Gunter Narr Verlag, Tübingen, p. 4, ISBN 978-3-8233-4953-2
