_“How goes it?” asked the blind of the lame one. “As you see,” replied the lame one to the blind._ Language is replete with words which taken in one sense are full of meaning and in another are colorless. There may be two different derivatives from the same root, one of which may develop into a word with a full meaning while the other may become a colorless suffix or prefix, and yet both may have the same sound. The similarity of sound between a word having full meaning and one whose meaning is colorless may also be accidental. In both cases the technique of wit can make use of such relationship of the speech material. The following examples illustrate some of these points. “_Do you call a man kind who remits nothing to his family while away?_” asked an actor. “_Call that kindness?_” “_Yes, unremitting kindness_,” was the reply of Douglas Jerrold. The wit here depends on the first syllable _un_ of the word _unremitting_. Un is usually a prefix denoting “not,” but by adding it to “remitting” a new relationship is unexpectedly established which changes the meaning of the context. “_An undertaker is one who always carries out what he undertakes._” The striking character upon which the wit here depends is the manifold application of the words _undertaker_ and _carry out_. Undertaker commonly denotes one who manages funerals. Only when taken in this sense and using the words _carry out_ literally is the sentence witty. The wit lies in the manifold application of the same words. _Double Meaning and Play on Words_ If we delve more deeply into the variety of “manifold application” of the same word we suddenly notice that we are confronted with forms of “double meaning” or “plays on words” which have been known a long time and which are universally acknowledged as belonging to the technique of wit. Then why have we bothered our brains about discovering something new when we could just as well have gleaned it from the most superficial treatise on wit? We can say in self-defense only that we are presenting another side of the same phenomena of verbal expressions. What the authors call the “playful” character of wit we treat from the point of view of “manifold application.” Further examples of manifold application which may also be designated under a new and third group, the class of double meaning, may be divided into subdivisions. These, to be sure, are not essentially differentiated from one another any more than the whole third group from the second. In the first place we have: (a) Cases of double meaning of a name and its verbal significance: e.g., “_Discharge thyself of our company, Pistol_” (_Henry IV_, Act II). “_For Suffolk’s duke may he suffocate_” (_Henry IV_, Act I). Heine says, “_Here in Hamburg rules not the rascally Macbeth, but Banko_ (Banquo).”