Some Great Malapropisms

[THEHORN]

These are courtesy of linguistic humorist Richard lederer :

With youth in Asia being a big question of right or wrong in today's society , hospitals fear that they will be sued .
The king's robe was lined with vermin .
My grandfather suffers from Old Timer's disease .
They though she was 99 but are convinced she's a centurion .
He's cutting off his nose despite his face .
I love academia nuts .
She is laboring under a missed conception .
My ancestors were pheasants who came from France .
If all the women sprayed their hair at the same time, how would it effect the O zone ?
The church choir sang "Gladly, the cross-eyed bear ".
Eve's -dropping on th e party telephone line was an accepted custom .
The pregnant woman went to the doctor's office and he seduced her labor.
The men were arrested for Mister Meeners .
Sexual abuse cna lead to more problems, one of which is insects .
The dining room features the colors of seafoam green and mauve with Chip and Dale furniture
placed throughout .
They played Gershwin's "Rap City In Blue ".
On th eday of his arrival, the Pontiff is expected to celibate mass at Immaculate Conception cathedral.
I came within a hare's breath of running for Congress .
Now don't you be impotent with me !
Proteins are composed of a mean old acid .
Students should practice safe sex by using condominiums .
They treated him as if he had the Blue Bonnet plague .
The girl was in the hospital having her utensils removed .
Blacks are especially prone to suffer from sick as hell anemia .
The Mormons transgressed all over the U.S.
It was time to get up and Adam .
They performed without musical accomplishment .
In a pig's sty !
He's realy got my dandruff up .
It cost a nominal leg .
The loaf of bread had no adjectives or preservatives .
My wife gets very edgy when she's administrating .
The Japanese finally copulated to end World War 11.
He's an idealistic Don Coyote .
She is suffering from post-mortem depression .
I think the condition is heretical ; my grandfather had it .
After the homecoming queen is crowned , th eband will strike up "Pomp and Circumcision ".
Execution makes people escape coats of society .
Some people are so dirty-minded they purposely misconscrew every remark you make .
In the film When Harry Met Sally, Harry and Sally have a Plutonic relationship.




LOL ! LOL ! LOL ! LOL !

Michelangelo painted the ceiling of sixteen chapels .

The Etruscans built a complex system of aqua ducks .

Ptolemy was the inventor of the sex tent .

She's a real Pre-madonna .

One of my favorite dishes as a child was cold slaw .

He died of a harder tack .

Green Bay's refreshing waters are at your beckoned call .

WANTED : experienced GM warranty clerk ,including knowledge of
micro fish .

We can fix the leak with duck tape .

Matthew is an enthusiastic reader and claims that "Lame is Rob"
is his favorite book .

The woman wore a cow neck sweater .

Spice up your omlet by adding some hollow penis .

[jbuck919]

The problem with these, as with those high school social studies "funny" answers one encounters, is that it is easy to make them up. It may be malapropisms and not puns that really are the lowest form of humor. However, I remember my high school chorus teacher, who once shouted at a very noisy bunch of kids, "Silence is tantamount!" He also thought (less funnily and more pathetically) that "albeit" meant "for example."

[Tarantella]

I remember when my mother (who was a nurse) worked in a local nursing home. She befriended a woman there who was a congenital "malapropist" (?). One day she said to my mother:

"Mary, I'm going to choir practice this afternoon".
"Oh, I didn't know you were a singer";
"No, I'm not: what made you think I was?"
"Well, you said you were going to choir practice";
"No; I mean the person who manipulates your back";
Mum's response (trying not to laugh), "Oh, you mean CHIROPRACTOR?".
"Yeah, that's the one...!"

And when I marked essays in high-school we had Year 9 (14 year olds) studying a text called "Hating Allison Ashley". One student wrote in her response that a character 'wanted to commit silverside (this is a type of cured meat in Australia) because she had a low self of steam"!!!

And another student referred to formulas of essays (theses) as faeces!!

[jbuck919]

I remember when my mother (who was a nurse) worked in a local nursing home. She befriended a woman there who was a congenital "malapropist" (?). One day she said to my mother:

"Mary, I'm going to choir practice this afternoon".
"Oh, I didn't know you were a singer";
"No, I'm not: what made you think I was?"
"Well, you said you were going to choir practice";
"No; I mean the person who manipulates your back";
Mum's response (trying not to laugh), "Oh, you mean CHIROPRACTOR?".
"Yeah, that's the one...!"

And when I marked essays in high-school we had Year 9 (14 year olds) studying a text called "Hating Allison Ashley". One student wrote in her response that a character 'wanted to commit silverside (this is a type of cured meat in Australia) because she had a low self of steam"!!!

And another student referred to formulas of essays (theses) as faeces!!

Those ring true, and maybe I was a little harsh on Robert's selection because looking them over again they also seem not to be made up (a lot of people think that duck tape is the correct name for that item). Of course, there is always the classic schoolchild misunderstanding of the line from the Pledge of Allegiance: And to the Republic for Richard Stands.

Speaking of schoolchildren, when I was a second-grader at a mainly native parochial school on Guam, I first learned the hymn "Hail Holy Queen," made famous by the musical Sister Act, but because of the accent of the native children (and nuns) I learned the words as "Hail holy Queen and thrown above (O Maria), Hail mother of mercy and a fluff." And no, I didn't know about powder-puff football at the time.

[Tarantella]

At some point all of these things are made up, albeit (cough) a bit predictable. My husband went to school in Fiji and left that country as a 16 year old in 1959. He's a bit older than me (another cough). But he went to school with 'part Europeans' and places great emphasis on that word "part", and still sings some of the cheesy songs from the 1950's British Empire which, to me, sound meaningless. The funny thing is that he has them down pat and has forgotten what they really mean. "Gaudeamus igitur" he also sometimes chortles in full voice and with a kind of smugness, and when I ask, "but what does it mean?" he grins broadly then continues his out-of-tune singing. (Sometimes he reminds me of the Scarecrow from "The Wizard of Oz"!!!!!!!!)

[jbuck919]

At some point all of these things are made up, albeit (cough) a bit predictable. My husband went to school in Fiji and left that country as a 16 year old in 1959. He's a bit older than me (another cough). But he went to school with 'part Europeans' and places great emphasis on that word "part", and still sings some of the cheesy songs from the 1950's British Empire which, to me, sound meaningless. The funny thing is that he has them down pat and has forgotten what they really mean. "Gaudeamus igitur" he also sometimes chortles in full voice and with a kind of smugness, and when I ask, "but what does it mean?" he grins broadly then continues his out-of-tune singing. (Sometimes he reminds me of the Scarecrow from "The Wizard of Oz"!!!!!!!!)

Lugeamus igitur, quia veti sumus.

[Tarantella]

Veni, vidi, vici!!!

[RebLem]

One of my pet peeves is the use of the term "hair-brained" when the writer means "hare-brained."

[Tarantella]

This could lead us down the treacherous and rocky road of poor English usage, spelling and grammar. I know "usage" is generally regarded as 'arbiter' by those who argue that language is 'organic' (shorthand for 'bottom-up change'?) and therefore we should just accept changes as natural and desirable, but that term is also somewhat reductionist and lets people off the hook. If we don't apply some rigor in language and spelling we end up with the possibility of a phonetic alphabet and ambiguity - and there are very many occasions when it is important that language NOT be ambiguous (but I'm 'preaching' to the converted here!).

This is one of my pet peeves: "the amount of people". Whatever happened to "the number of people" or the "amount of water"?

The cliche has reached new heights in our national parliament: "moving forwards", "going forwards" (note the "s"), "heads up" - pass me the bucket. Speaking of which...

I detest euphemisms: "he passed.... over....on....away". Whatever happened to "died"? People are afraid to say "dead" in the western world. Another is the penchant for political correctness which results in such ghastly euphemisms as "hearing-challenged" (deaf) and, in this country, people on welfare are "clients". God spare me from such double-talk!!!

By the way, you'll notice my spelling is often quite different to your American spelling. Sometimes it drives me mad, because the computer spell-check keeps telling me I should be spelling words YOUR way. That'll be the day!!!

[hangos]

This could lead us down the treacherous and rocky road of poor English usage, spelling and grammar. I know "usage" is generally regarded as 'arbiter' by those who argue that language is 'organic' (shorthand for 'bottom-up change'?) and therefore we should just accept changes as natural and desirable, but that term is also somewhat reductionist and lets people off the hook. If we don't apply some rigor in language and spelling we end up with the possibility of a phonetic alphabet and ambiguity - and there are very many occasions when it is important that language NOT be ambiguous (but I'm 'preaching' to the converted here!).

This is one of my pet peeves: "the amount of people". Whatever happened to "the number of people" or the "amount of water"?

The cliche has reached new heights in our national parliament: "moving forwards", "going forwards" (note the "s"), "heads up" - pass me the bucket. Speaking of which...

I detest euphemisms: "he passed.... over....on....away". Whatever happened to "died"? People are afraid to say "dead" in the western world. Another is the penchant for political correctness which results in such ghastly euphemisms as "hearing-challenged" (deaf) and, in this country, people on welfare are "clients". God spare me from such double-talk!!!

Martin

By the way, you'll notice my spelling is often quite different to your American spelling. Sometimes it drives me mad, because the computer spell-check keeps telling me I should be spelling words YOUR way. That'll be the day!!!

Tarantella, I completely agree with your annoyance at these terms. I remember when everyone ( in the UK at least ) said "different from" but I think it must have changed by analogy to "similar to" - deplorable IMHO. Another pet hate of mine is "After their defeat to Man Utd" when it surely should be "by". Again, lazy analogy to "They lost to". However, top of my list is the increasingly common " I should of done it earlier"!

[hangos]

More stupid PC terms ;
Cleaners are now called "surface technicians"
11-year old pupils at secondary school are now all "students" !!
Can it get any worse? Probably .....
Martin

[John F]

He's the very pineapple of politeness. - Mrs. Malaprop

Comparisons are odorous. - Dogberry

[Tarantella]

Should of, aye? I used to write the words on the board: Should have - contracted to should've, not should 'of'. They never seemed to get it!!

And this is funny: I did my first casual teaching at a tough "Rutherford Technology High". People called it "Rudder-ford" (even tertiary-educated friends!). So, the first thing I wrote on the board for Year 9 was 'I'm going to teach you about where you go to school. Many people say 'Rudder-ford'. (I wrote Rutherford in full). Please show me HOW you get that sound from that word?" At the end of today's lesson you will have learned WHERE you go to school"!!!

Yes, it was patronizing but it gave them the message. Is it merely Australia which has such verbal laziness?

[RebLem]

As someone who was a public aid caseworker in Chicago for 31 years, I can tell you welfare recipients are called "clients" here, too. Always have been as far as I know. And I would like to point out that in the US, social work is one of the few professions which has actually simplified and clarified language over the last 40 years or so. We now speak of "homeless people"; we used to call them "undomiciled persons." We have replaced "the disadvantaged" and "the underprivileged" with "poor people."

Other pet peeves: "We have less people...[doing whatever...]" instead of using the correct term, "fewer people." But I think the greatest abominable shift in language in the 20th century occurred in the 1920's, when the word "terrific" became a good, positive thing. Terror, terrorism, terrible, and all the other variations on the word "terror" are still bad things, but this one word, "terrific," was ripped from the sequence and made into something positive. Its disgusting. But its also a battle which has been lost, and our language is poorer for it.

Some abominations seem to be particularly endemic in academia. Administrators no longer administer, they administrate, for example. And why did we turn a "high school diploma" into a "high school degree?" Instead of "What will happen in the future?" we ask "What will happen going forward?" UGH!

OTOH, I do like some other changes. For example, I and many others used to get confused by the term "Monday to Friday." I couldn't figure out whether Friday was the last day in the sequence, which the teachers always said it was, or whether it was the first day outside the series. Now, we say "Monday through Friday," and things are much clearer. And lots of things that the word police say, or used to say, were important no longer seem so to me. I am not as disturbed by the nounification of verbs and the verbifiation of nouns as many are, and I don't think it makes a whit of difference whether you pronounce the "t" in "often" or not.

And one of my ambitions is to write an article entitled, The True Facts of Past History and Other Repetitive Redundancies.

[jbuck919]

As someone who was a public aid caseworker in Chicago for 31 years, I can tell you welfare recipients are called "clients" here, too. Always have been as far as I know. And I would like to point out that in the US, social work is one of the few professions which has actually simplified and clarified language over the last 40 years or so. We now speak of "homeless people"; we used to call them "undomiciled persons." We have replaced "the disadvantaged" and "the underprivileged" with "poor people."

Other pet peeves: "We have less people...[doing whatever...]" instead of using the correct term, "fewer people." But I think the greatest abominable shift in language in the 20th century occurred in the 1920's, when the word "terrific" became a good, positive thing. Terror, terrorism, terrible, and all the other variations on the word "terror" are still bad things, but this one word, "terrific," was ripped from the sequence and made into something positive. Its disgusting. But its also a battle which has been lost, and our language is poorer for it.

Some abominations seem to be particularly endemic in academia. Administrators no longer administer, they administrate, for example. And why did we turn a "high school diploma" into a "high school degree?" Instead of "What will happen in the future?" we ask "What will happen going forward?" UGH!

OTOH, I do like some other changes. For example, I and many others used to get confused by the term "Monday to Friday." I couldn't figure out whether Friday was the last day in the sequence, which the teachers always said it was, or whether it was the first day outside the series. Now, we say "Monday through Friday," and things are much clearer. And lots of things that the word police say, or used to say, were important no longer seem so to me. I am not as disturbed by the nounification of verbs and the verbifiation of nouns as many are, and I don't think it makes a whit of difference whether you pronounce the "t" in "often" or not.

It does if you're directing a choir and they won't listen to you when you tell them all that they must pronounce it the same way (my way, without the "t"). Nothing like a little mutiny under minor authority by adults but for the most childish reason (you can tell, can't you, that I still carry my resentment for that incident after many years).

Most of the things you mention don't bother me as much as they do you. Meaning reversals seem inevitable as language develops, for which I could cite the example of "bad" as slang for "good." There's probably not much we can do about this and perhaps nothing we should want to do.

On the other hand, there are some illogicalities that can't be rescued by any concept of vivacious language change, and you mention several of them, including some that we can be thankful have been reversed. One that remains and is pervasive and that drives me nuts is "between 5 to ten" or "between 5-10." Even the most literate journalists use this, presumably because no high school or college teacher told them that it is wrong, and not for a negligible reason.

[Tarantella]

We've had a rapid language about-face here recently in Australia after our (female) PM attacked the (male) Leader of the Opposition, calling him to account for misogyny. There has been an avalanche of discussion because our Macquarie Dictionary has decided to change the dictionary definition of misogyny away from 'hatred of women' to something which suggested sustained dislike and disrespect for women (I'm paraphrasing). This is a classical example of usage prevailing and, in this case, resulting in immediate action. Critics have asked where they will now find a word which describes 'hatred of women'. It seems the word 'misogynist' will probably carry BOTH meanings, from what I can gather. But this change has been affected because of our Prime Minister's very public (over) use of that word. It's hard to imagine a man who has a wife, 3 strong daughters and a female chief of staff being a misogynist. Actually, he's an 'equal opportunity' hater!! My point is that the rate of change is having profound and, often, negative impacts on language. Not a problem having new words enter the lexicon - bytes, flaming, trolling, server etc. - it's the absurd changes which I find disturbing because it is robbing us of arguably our greatest gift: language.

When my students (frequently) complained about why they had to study English I'd tell them that they can hire a contractor to estimate how much concrete they needed for their driveway, but that they couldn't hire anybody to help them think and express themselves and, further, that "those who can do this will be running things"!

[Teresa B]

Many years ago my parents and I were making the seemingly interminable drive to Key West. I was a teenager, and my then 4-year-old nephew Peter was with us. We kept talking about when we would reach Miami. Peter, who had been relatively quiet, piped up (no pun intended) suddenly with "What IS your Ami, anyway?"

Teresa

[stenka razin]

From Casey and Yogi, just a few examples from these baseball masters of linguistic hijinks:


Yogi Berra...

*When the NY Mayor's wife commented that Berra looked rather cool in his new suit, he responded " Thanks ma'am...you don't look so hot yourself."

*"Baseball is 90% mental...and the other half is physical."

* " Nobody goes there anymore 'cause it's too crowded."

* "It gets late early around here."

* After failing yet another grade school test, Yogi was asked by his teacher... " Mr. Berra, don't you know anything?" To which he responded... " Ma'am, I don't even suspect anything."

Casey Stengel...

* " All right you guys, I want you to line up alphabetically according to height."

* " We're so bad, if we got any worse we'd almost be good."


Regards,
Mel

[jbuck919]

From Casey and Yogi, just a few examples from these baseball masters of linguistic hijinks:


Yogi Berra...

*When the NY Mayor's wife commented that Berra looked rather cool in his new suit, he responded " Thanks ma'am...you don't look so hot yourself."

*"Baseball is 90% mental...and the other half is physical."

* " Nobody goes there anymore 'cause it's too crowded."

* "It gets late early around here."

* After failing yet another grade school test, Yogi was asked by his teacher... " Mr. Berra, don't you know anything?" To which he responded... " Ma'am, I don't even suspect anything."

I wonder how many of those -isms are apocryphal. Another one I've heard is that when he was handed a check made out to "Bearer" he commented, "Aw, can't you at least spell my name right?" There's something inconsistent about the kinds of humor contained in different Berra-isms. I don't see how they could all come from the same person.

[John F]

Yogi's pal Joe Garagiola is said to have invented some Yogi-isms, maybe a lot of them. As Yogi said, "I never said most of the things I said." But he really did say, on a Yogi Berra Night at Yankee Stadium, "I want to thank everyone for making this night necessary."

[slofstra]

Some of these examples are actually Spoonerisms. Or might be mondegreens. The difference is subtle. A malapropism involves using the wrong word. A Spoonerism involves a rearrangement of the right word for humorous effect. A mondegreen is a clever kind of homonym. For example, Did Jim Hendrix sing, "Excuse me while I kiss the sky" or "Excuse me while I kiss this guy". That's a mondegreen.

I'm thinking Foster Brooks used to use this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbLn7cX-HHg
I didn't detect any Spoonerisms in the above, but it's quite funny anyway.

And Norm Crosby specialized in malapropisms.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oMDNc54eHw
Must be a dozen in this 30 second commercial.