Tools of Wit Blog

A common humor technique is catachresis, an outlandish metaphor. When used for humor, it often involves exaggerating some attribute.

Here's an example Gene Perret wrote for Phyllis Diller. Phyllis was talking about here mother-in-law "Moby Dick" (itself an example of periphrasis), a large woman. She said, "When she wears a white dress, we show home movies on her." This, of course, exaggerated the woman's size, but notice, Phyllis did not say "She is as large as a movie screen." She did not say, "She is a movie screen." Instead, she talked about treating her as they would a movie screen. (By the way, the other meaning of catachresis is using a metaphor implicitly, e.g. without introducing it with "is," so this is an example of both meanings of catachresis.)

This joke is an example of conceptual blending, combining a woman wearing a dress, and a movie screen, which is large, white, and has movies shown on it.  The blend takes all the listed attributes of the movie screen, projects them on the dress, and thereby  projects the attribute "large" on the woman.

Another example comes from the comedienne Judy Tenuta (via Judy Carter's Stand-Up Comedy: The Book). She refers to the guy sitting on the stool next to her in a bar who "looks like a squid in stretch pants." This exaggerates the attribute "ugly" by blending the guy sitting next to her with a squid, taking the stretch pants from the guy and putting them on the squid, projecting squid back onto the guy.

posted by TC @ 3:27 PM