A greguería is a short statement, usually one sentence, in which the author expresses a philosophical, pragmatic, or humorous idea in a witty and original way. A greguería is roughly similar to an aphorism

Aphorism

An aphorism is an original thought, spoken or written in a laconic and memorable form.The term was first used in the Aphorisms of Hippocrates...

 or a one-liner joke

One-liner joke

A one-liner is a joke that is delivered in a single line. A good one-liner is said to be pithy.Comedians and actors use this comedic method as part of their act, e.g...

 in comedy. It is a rhetorical

Rhetorical device

In rhetoric, a rhetorical device or resource of language is a technique that an author or speaker uses to convey to the listener or reader a meaning with the goal of persuading him or her towards considering a topic from a different perspective. While rhetorical devices may be used to evoke an...

 and stylistic

Stylistic device

In literature and writing, Stylistic Elements are the use of any of a variety of techniques to give an auxiliary meaning, idea, or feeling to the literal or written.- Figurative language :...

 device used in Spanish

Spanish literature

Spanish literature generally refers to literature written in the Spanish language within the territory that presently constitutes the state of Spain...

 and Latin American

Latin American literature

Latin American literature consists of the oral and written literature of Latin America in several languages, particularly in Spanish, Portuguese, and indigenous languages of the Americas. It rose to particular prominence globally during the second half of the 20th century, largely due to the...

 literature.

History

Ramón Gómez de la Serna

Ramón Gómez de la Serna

Ramón Gómez de la Serna Puig was a Spanish writer, dramatist and avant-garde agitator. He strongly influenced surrealist film maker Luis Buñuel....

 is considered the father of the greguería, which he defined as humor plus metaphor. Gómez de la Serna first used the greguería in about 1910.
Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo , known as Jorge Luis Borges , was an Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator born in Buenos Aires. In 1914 his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school, receiving his baccalauréat from the Collège de Genève in 1918. The family...

 attributes the invention of the greguería to Jules Renard

Jules Renard

Pierre-Jules Renard or Jules Renard was a French author and member of the Académie Goncourt, most famous for the works Poil de carotte and Les Histoires Naturelles...

 and the name greguería to Gómez de la Serna. And this would not be strange, given the elitistic character of Borges, influenced by the Contemporanean British and French cultures. The freshness, freedom and vivid imagination of a flexible and democratic Surrealistic writer, such as Ramón Gómez de la Serna, the Spanish inventor of Greguerías, definitely escapes the intellectual straitjacket of the Protestant European influences patent in Borges work.

Examples

Some examples of greguerías by Ramón Gómez de la Serna

Ramón Gómez de la Serna

Ramón Gómez de la Serna Puig was a Spanish writer, dramatist and avant-garde agitator. He strongly influenced surrealist film maker Luis Buñuel....

, originally in Spanish.

• The couple of eggs we eat look like identical twins, and they're not even third cousins. (El par de huevos que nos tomamos parece que son gemelos, y no son ni primos terceros.)
• The peacock is a retired myth. (El pavo real es un mito jubilado.)
• Doors get angry with the wind. (Las puertas se enfadan con el viento.)