Non tutti, ma buona parte” (Not all, but a great many)—Buona parte [=Buonaparte].[1] Brill reports still another example in which the wit depends on the twofold application of a name: “Hood once remarked that he had to be a lively Hood for a livelihood.”[2]
At one time when Antigone was produced in Berlin a critic found that the presentation entirely lacked the character of antiquity. The wits of Berlin incorporated this criticism in the following manner: “Antique? Oh, nay” (Th. Vischer and K. Fischer).
Manifold Application of the Same Material
In these examples, which will suffice for this species of wit, the technique is the same. A name is made use of twice; first, as a whole, and then divided into its syllables—and in their divided state the syllables yield a different meaning.[3] The manifold application of the same word, once as a whole and then as the component syllables into which it divides itself, was the first case that came to our attention in which technique deviated from that of condensation.
