As promised, today’s edition of the Weekend Word Wrap is on “malapropisms”—a word not to be confused with Bushisms.
While George W. certainly has rattled off his fair share of them over the years (“We must always remember that all human beings begin life as a feces”), a Bushism shouldn’t be mistaken for a malapropism, nor vice-versa. Very often you’ll hear or read people using the the two interchangeably. The truth is, our president doesn’t usually speak in malapropisms. His “manglement” of the language is so unique, it needs its own term. For instance, the following Bushisms are not malapropisms:
“I’m honored to shake the hand of a brave Iraqi citizen who had his hand cut off by Saddam Hussein.”
“Oftentimes, we live in a processed world — you know, people focus on the process and not results.”
So what, then, is a malapropism? The word comes from one Mrs. Malaprop, who, in Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s play called, The Rivals, unintentionally confused words that sounded similar – getting big laughs from audiences during 1775. The English word, malapropos, or “out of place,” which Sheridan was playing on, comes from the French mal à propos, or “ill to purpose.” (Notice the root “apropos” hiding in there.)
One of Mrs. Malaprop’s more famous screw-ups goes like this: “”He is the very pineapple of politeness.”
A more recent (and perhaps funnier) malapropism comes from the film Napoleon Dynamite. When a girl attempts to sell bracelets to Napoleon, he replies, “I already made, like, affinity of those at Scout Camp.” (Lifted right out of the ’80s!)
My favorite malapropism was heard years ago when I was stuck in a taxi during rush hour in midtown Manhattan. We were in stop-start traffic on Eighth Avenue and my driver turned to me and said, “If it’s any constellation, Tenth Avenue isn’t any better.”
We’d love to hear some of your favorites, if you have ‘em!
Check out all past Weekend Word Wraps>>
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Spoonerisms fit into this category, too, and you didn’t mention them. The Rev. Spooner would mix the beginnings of words in a sermon coming out with something totally different than what was meant. For instance: Let me sew you to a sheet.
posted by Leslie Booher on 8-11-2006 at 9:20 am
Hotel connoisseur
posted by Andrew Ferguson on 8-11-2006 at 10:37 am
One of my favorite irritants: For all intensive (instead of “intents and”) purposes. It may not qualify as a malapropism, but any phrase or sentence containing “irregardless.”
posted by Doug Richardson on 8-11-2006 at 10:40 am
Ugh. I hate irregardless. It makes me cringe every time I hear the word. It pains me even more that it’s officially a word in the dictionary now, because so many people started using it.
posted by Mangesh on 8-11-2006 at 11:09 am
Mangesh:
You cringe because irregardless is in the dictionary? Do you understand that this is how language has evolved since, well, since language began? I’d guess that a good percentage of words were cringeworthy when they were first used. (Sorry if I just made up a word there . . . )
posted by mrehula on 8-11-2006 at 12:42 pm
A solecism of a different sort that peeves me is the superfluous “s” added to the word regard: “in (or with) regards to the…” The superfluous “e” included in the misspelling of judgment (“judgement”) gets me going, too. Let’s also throw in the misuse of the word “enormity” as a substitute for vastness (although this frequent misuse has found its way into several dictionaries). How about the use of the plural of criterion (“criteria”) as though it were a singular noun? I could go on and on.
posted by Craig Veals on 8-11-2006 at 2:20 pm
My mother recently told me her friend had just moved into a condom.
posted by Laura Miller on 8-11-2006 at 9:13 pm
The quote “I’m honored to shake the hand of a brave Iraqi citizen who had his hand cut off by Saddam Hussein†is taken out of context and isn’t a Bushism.
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2004_05_23-2004_05_29
He was shaking the gentleman’s new high-tech prosthetic hand. A photo of the event, as recorded by USAToday can be found at the site above.
posted by Tom on 8-12-2006 at 8:14 am
My college roommate Linda had a hard time getting started each morning. One especially sleepy a.m., she walked into the student café and uttered what is to this day the greatest spoonerism I have ever heard: “I’ll have a coff of cuppee with some dream cairy nonner.”
posted by Dawn Lorraine on 8-12-2006 at 9:31 pm
The ‘malaprop man’ from the movie Kissing Jessica Stein – “Normally I’m a pretty self-defecating guy.”
posted by Crystal on 8-13-2006 at 10:39 am
mrehula:
Although I understand the point you’re trying to make, I have to agree with Mangesh. The difference here is the word “irregardless” is almost always used inappropriately. If “regardless” means “without regard”, then “irregardless” means “without without regard” or “with regard” — the opposite of what is usually meant.
In case you can’t tell, this has been a long-time peeve of mine, too.
posted by Melissa on 8-14-2006 at 1:23 pm
Spoonerisms are awesome…my favorite is the one in which he was trying to tell a student that he had “wasted the whole term,” and instead told the student he had “tasted the whole worm.”
As for Bushisms…well…I don’t think I even have to say anything more about those…
posted by Sammy on 8-14-2006 at 3:01 pm
A few years ago when my friends and I were in a Driver’s Ed course together, one of the activities was to imitate drinking and driving tests(walking a straight line, and such) using special “drunk goggles”. Well, as we were waiting our turn, my friends suddenly shouted out “Gunk Droggles!” It’s been an inside joke with us ever since.
posted by Heather on 8-15-2006 at 4:17 am
“A friend in need is a friend indeed” vs. in deed.
posted by Malapropos on 11-23-2007 at 4:02 pm
Those fools tried to implement me in the crime.
posted by Kev on 2-19-2008 at 2:56 am
I had a great-aunt who was the queen of malapropisms…she said the condom thing too—how she couldn’t believe a whole huge group of people had managed to stay in just one Florida condom. She also liked to talk about serenaded knives. I know she had a lot more, I just can’t think of any more off the top of my head :).
posted by Fruppi on 11-13-2008 at 3:11 pm