“I see,” said Tom icily: Tom Swifties at the beginning of the 21st century

• Authors: Anna T. Litovkina
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This paper gives a definition and historical background of the Tom Swifty, addresses different types of punning employed in Tom Swifties, and discusses topics emerging in them. It also treats the occurrence of proverbs, proverbial phrases, idioms, and aphorisms in Tom Swifties. What is typical for Tom Swifty? It might be considered the twentieth century development of the form of folklore called wellerism. Tom Swifty is a wellerism conventionally based on the punning relationship between the way an adverb describes a speaker and simultaneously refers to the meaning of the speaker’s statement. The speaker is traditionally Tom, his statement is usually placed at the beginning of the Tom Swifty, and the adverb at the end of it, e.g. “I see,” said Tom icily (icily vs. I see).

Keywords

EN

Tom Swifty; adverb; punning; paronym; homonym; wellerism

• Publisher: Cracow Tertium Society for the Promotion of Language Studies
• Journal: The European Journal of Humour Research
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 2
• Issue: 2

Dates

published

2014

online

2014-10-02

Contributors

author

Anna T. Litovkina

Identifiers

DOI

10.7592/EJHR2014.2.2.tlitovkina