MALAPROPISM

[Dr. Goodword]

• malapropism •

Pronunciation: mæ-lê-prahp-i-zêm • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: A homophone or near homophone (word that sounds like another) of the word intended, curiously out of place in the sentence in which it occurs.

Notes: As you might expect, someone given to committing malapropisms is a malapropist because of their malapropistic (the adjective) expressions. Composer Leonard Bernstein was speaking malapropistically (the adverb) when he claimed to be suffering from a 'psychosemitic' illness.

In Play: Let us begin at the source, Mrs. Malaprop's malapropisms (see Word History): "[P]romise to forget this fellow—to illiterate him, I say, quite from your memory."
"I would have her instructed in geometry, that she might know something of the contagious countries."
Here are a few others from various fictional and nonfictional characters: "…Vito's passing, and all that that entrails." —Tony Soprano
"We cannot let terrorists and rogue nations hold this nation hostile or hold our allies hostile." —George W. Bush
"Republicans understand the importance of the bondage between a mother and child." —Dan Quayle, former US Vice President
"Marlow quickly plummeted to the top and now is at the very pineapple of his career." —Various sources

Word History: Today's Good Word is a commonization (conversion from proper to common noun) of the surname of Mrs. Malaprop, a character in Richard Sheridan's comedy "The Rivals". Mrs. Malaprop was noted for using wrong words but words that were so close in sound to the word she intended, that the result was funny. Sheridan created her name from the French phrase mal à propos "inappropriate". Mrs. Malaprop thus is the eponym of malapropism. (I would not misspeak myself in saying that we owe a debt of gratitude to Daniel Cross for suggesting today's Good Word.)

[Stargzer]

From the web site for the comic strip Frank and Ernest:

Look! Up in the sky! It's absurd! It's inane! It's "Malaprop Man"! Malaprop Man! Where are you headed? To Lost Vegas! I'm going to do some serious rambling at Caesar's Salad! First, I'll throw some crepes, then hit the flapjack tables … And maybe I'll play keynote, too. After that I'll cash in my chimps and go to the place I feel most at home. Where's that? The slob machines! I should have guessed, M-Man!

View this particular cartoon.

And another.

For more, from the home page, search on "malaprop."

This is definitely one of the funniest strips out there!

[Perry]