Page:Freud - Wit and its relation to the unconscious.djvu/35

Rh quite famillionaire." The entire restriction, which the second sentence imposes on the first thus verifying the familiar treatment, has been lost in the jest. But it has not been so entirely lost as not to leave a substitute from which it can be reconstructed. A second change has also taken place. The word “familiar” in the witless expression of the thought has been transformed into “famillionaire” in the text of the wit, and there is no doubt that the witty character and ludicrous effect of the joke depends directly upon this word-formation. The newly formed word is identical in its first part with the word “familiar” of the first sentence, and its terminal syllables correspond to the word “millionaire” of the second sentence. In this manner it puts us in a position to conjecture the second sentence which was omitted in the text of the wit. It may be described as a composite of two constituents “familiar” and “millionaire,” and one is tempted to depict its origin from the two words graphically.

The process, then, which has carried the thought into the witticism can be represented in