among the professors there are some who have no name as yet.”
Dr. Johnson said of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, which was poor in purse, but prolific in the distribution of its degrees: “Let it persevere in its present plan and it may become rich by degrees.” Here the wit depends more on the manifold application than on the play on words.
The keen-witted writer, Horatio Winslow, sums up the only too-familiar history of some American families as follows:
A TALE OF TWO AMERICAN GENERATIONS
Gold Mine
Gold Spoon
Gold Cure
The last couplet, gold cure, refers to the familiar cure for alcoholism. This wit is an excellent example of unification—everything is, as it were, of gold. The manifold meanings of the adjective which do not very strikingly contrast with one another make possible this “manifold application.”
Ambiguity
Another play on words will facilitate the transition to a new subdivision of the technique of double meaning. The witty colleag
