¿ANTI-PROVERBIOS O PARA-PROVERBIOS?

Abstract

Wolfgang Mieder has created the word “antiproverbs” to name “parodied, twisted, or fractured proverbs that reveal humorous or satirical speech play with traditional proverbial wisdom”. The use of this term has become normal in the paremiological literature. In our essay we pro-pound to use the term “paraproverb” instead of “antiproverb”. We base our proposal on the fact that in the technical terminology of Linguistics and Philology the prefix para- is the most used to create terms that ex-press the humorous twisting of a model. It is the case of the generic term “parody” and the case of the more specific one “paratragedy”; and, more in general, we think that philologists can understand as humorous twist-ing of a model a neologism (from the literary or linguistic vocabulary) composed with the prefix para- (we have documented the use of some neologisms such as “paraepic” or “paracomic”). Furthermore, this sense of the prefix para- is not limited to the technical terminology, but modern languages use often the prefix para- to create new words that name a reality that maintains traits of the imitated model, but somehow deviates from this model or twists it: paramilitary, paranormal, parastatal, para-medical, parapharmacy, etc.

Keywords

• definition
• genre
• para-proverb
• anti-proverb
• twisted proverb
• prefix para-