Wellerism

Named after Sam Weller and his father, characters in Charles Dickens Pickwick Papers (1837) and has come to mean a style of speech or expression typical of the Wellers, sometimes referred to as ‘Welleresque’. Typically, a Wellerism makes fun of a statement by adding a facetious or punning sequel that often contradicts it. Here are some examples. ‘I see said the blind man’, ‘a nod’s as good as a wink to a blind man’, ‘it’s all coming back to me said the sailor pee-ing into the wind’, ‘I’ll have to rehearse that said the undertaker as the coffin fell out of the car’. Such word play had long been in existence before Sam Weller, but Pickwick Papers popularised it and gave it a name, which entered the language in 1837.