If I agreed with you we'd both be wrong

The word is odd, but the concept is fun.

paraprosdokian / pæ-rê-prahz-dok-i-ên / noun


Dr. Goodword enlightens us: A paraprosdokian is a phrase or sentence that leads us down the garden path to an unexpected ending. It sets us up to expect one thing but ends on a surprising semantic twist. For example, commenting on the progressive ideas of Labor Party member Sir Stafford Cripps (1889-1952), Winston Churchill once quipped: "There but for the grace of God—goes God."

Though many writers were good at creating paraprosdokians, few excelled Winston Churchill and Groucho Marx. Churchill once said, "You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing—after they have tried everything else." One of Groucho's many paraprosdokians is: "I had a wonderful evening—but this wasn't it." Of course, we should not forget W. C. Fields, who once quipped, " "Philadelphia, wonderful town, spent a week there one night. Still not enough paraprosdokians?

Paraprosdokian, Dr. Goodword says, is immediately composed of Greek para "beyond" and prosdokia "expectation". Prosdokia comprises pro and the root of dokein "to think, imagine, expect".The same root gave us the Greek words dogma and paradox, another word referring to something beyond our expectations. In Latin the same root emerged as docere "to teach" (cause to think) and went into the making of the word borrowed by English as doctor "the highest university degree". 

Here are some examples.

• Two wrongs don't make a right—but three lefts do.
• Now, you take my wife . . . PLEASE! —Henny Youngman
• Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
• If I agreed with you we'd both be wrong.
• War does not determine who is right—only who is left.
• The early bird gets the worm but the second mouse gets the cheese.
• I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn't work that way, so I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness.
• Do not argue with an idiot: he will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
• I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather, not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car.

It all comes back to me now

Sam Weller, Mr. Pickwick's good-natured servant in Charles Dickens' The Pickwick Papers, and his father were fond of following well-known sayings or phrases with humorous or punning conclusions, Merriam-Webster tells us.

For example, in one incident in the book, Sam quips, "What the devil do you want with me, as the man said, when he see the ghost?" Neither Charles Dickens nor Sam Weller invented that type of word play, but Weller's tendency to use such witticisms had provoked people to start calling them "Wellerisms" by 1839, soon after the publication of the novel.

Wellerisms, according to Wikipedia, make fun of established proverbs by showing that they are wrong in certain situations, often when taken literally. In this sense, wellerisms that include proverbs are a type of anti-proverb. Typically a Wellerism consists of three parts: a proverb or saying, a speaker, and an often humorously literal explanation.

Some examples:

• "Everyone to his own taste," the old woman said when she kissed her cow.
• "We'll have to rehearse that," said the undertaker as the coffin fell out of the car.
• A body can get used to anything, even to being hanged, as the Irishman said.
• "This week is beginning splendidly," said one who was to be hanged on Monday.
• "Much noise and little wool," said the Devil when he sheared a pig.
• "So I see," said the blind man as he picked up his hammer and saw.
• "It all comes back to me now," said the Captain as he spat into the wind.

Over the years, this writer says, as wellerisms kept going through cycles of thematic adjustments and creative regeneration, the focus started to shift from the comic situation towards the linguistic pun, the wordplay. The following two examples of 20th century wellerisms illustrate this shift:

• "Don't get in a jam," said one strawberry to the other.
• "I'll raise you two," said the wealthy lady to the orphans.