Wellerism, this paremiological parlance can also be regarded as being part and parcel of The Global Theory of Verbal Humour insofar as it tends to be based on laughter thanks to the characters or the narrator's oral literary artefacts that depart from the acceptance of a general proverbial truth.
Unlike a proverb, Wellerism is hardly ever an impersonal entity but a recognizable one which an individual can create and leave in the arcane of history owing to his/her ingenuity.
Speroni C (1953) The Italian
Wellerism to the End of the Seventeenth Century.
Asi, lleva al centro del texto lo que en Cervantes y en Dickens era caracteristica caricaturizada de (y confinada en) un personaje particular: el hablar en refranes propio de Sancho Panza y del Sam Weller de The Pickwick Papers, que dio origen al adjetivo
wellerism. Esto nos lleva al segundo aspecto de la lengua de Potpourri: su pliegue critico respecto de los decires adocenados, que explicaria esa pulsion acumuladora y tambien otros comportamientos de la novela.
Weller's characteristic form of wit, the
Wellerism, is that of
Occasionally, his allusions echo the form, if not the absurdity, of Dickensian
Wellerisms. Of Farquhar's outspokenness, Gosse observes that he means no harm, "as Hodgson once said of certain curious remarks of Byron's" (154); although the reader might not know about Byron's friendship with Francis Hodgson, the Provost of Eton, they would recognize Byron's notorious penchant for idealistic and cynical frankness.
It is often pointed out that Sam's "
Wellerisms" (5) and Jeeves's witty responses to Bertie, demonstrative of the butler's "erudition and ingenuity" (Smith 214), contribute significantly to the creation of the comic effect in these texts.
One list invites users to vote whether a Holzerism is in fact true or false; another encourages callers to "improve" selected one-liners or flip through "edits" others have entered, such as A LOT OF PROFESSIONALS SMOKE CRACKPOTS," "ABUSE OF POWER CHORDS COMES AS NO SURPRISE," or "A LITTLE HOLZER CENSORS THIS LIST" (loosely based on her original A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE CAN GO A LONG WAY"), as well as outright originals,
Wellerisms, and other genres of flame.