[On 22 January 2026, I
posted “Fossil Words,” another word-focused piece among several on the subjects
of words and writing that are on Rick
On Theater. I return to that topic
now, focusing on word errors of various sorts that I find curious and interesting. I hope you will find them so, too.
[On “Fossil Words,” I
admitted to being a “wordie” and a “language geek.” Now ROTters
will see more proof of that confession. One note, however: I have interrupted
the two articles to add more examples of the type of tongue-slips they discuss.]
“SPOONERISMS,
MONDEGREENS AND
OTHER COMMON
LANGUAGE ERRORS”
by Thomas Moore
Devlin
[The article
below was posted on the website Babbel on
11 September 2020. Babbel is a German
company operating a subscription-based language-learning app and e-learning
platform (www.babbel.com). The company is headquartered in Berlin,
operating as Babbel GmbH, and has an office in New York City, Babbel Inc.]
Is that thing you
just said an eggcorn or a mondegreen?
Everyone makes occasional mistakes when they’re talking.
Even if you’ve spoken English since birth, it won’t stop you from tripping over
a phrase once in a while. And though these slip-ups might seem random, there
are certain mistakes that tend to happen over and over. So much so, that they
even have names, like spoonerisms (errors that happen when you’re talking) and
mondegreens (errors that happen when you’re listening). We decided to look at
these categories of linguistic lapses to see what they are and why they happen.
Here are the backstories behind our mouths’ many missteps.
Spoonerisms
What are they? This is when two sounds in a
phrase are switched. While spoonerisms are usually a mistake, they’re sometimes
used to create a fun play on words, like in Shel Silverstein’s Runny Babbit.
[Native Chicagoan Sheldon (“Shel”)
Silverstein (1930-99) was a writer, cartoonist, songwriter, and musician. He started out as a cartoonist, publishing
work in Playboy and the military publication Stars and
Stripes (he’d been drafted into the army in 1953 and served in Japan and Korea
until 1955; his cartoons appeared in the Pacific edition of the paper), before
turning to children’s books, which earned him several awards. (He used “Uncle
Shelby” as a pen name for his early children’s books and adult satires. He
wrote, drew, or composed his later works as “Shel Sivertstein.”) Silverstein’s
the author and illustrator of numerous books, including The Giving
Tree (Harper & Row, 1964), Where the Sidewalk Ends (Harper
& Row, 1974), A Light in the Attic (Harper & Row, 1981),
and Falling Up (HarperCollins, 1996). His books have been
commended for their appeal to both adults and children.
[Silverstein’s poems are often
darkly humorous, irreverent, and populated with invented characters, such as
the “Bloath” in Where the Sidewalk Ends, who dwells “[i]n the
undergrowth” and “feeds upon poets and tea.” Silverstein’s poems and stories
are accompanied by his simple yet energetic pen-and-ink illustrations. The
Giving Tree, a fable about a lifelong relationship between a boy and a
tree, has become a classic in the canon of children’s literature and has sold
over five million copies.
[As a songwriter, Silverstein
wrote “The Cover of ‘Rolling Stone,’” recorded by Dr. Hook & The
Medicine Show (1972); “The Unicorn,” for the Irish Rovers (1968); “A Boy Named
Sue,” for Johnny Cash (1969); and “Queen of the Silver Dollar,” which Emmylou
Harris covered on Pieces of the Sky (1975). Silverstein
collaborated with playwright David Mamet (b. 1947) on Oh, Hell!, a pair
of one-act plays staged at Lincoln Center Theater’s Mitzi E. Newhouse
Theater in 1989, and the screenplay Things Change (Columbia
Pictures, 1988). The two men and Elaine
May (b. 1932) also composed a trio of one-acts called Three Plays by
Chicagoans, presented at the Goodman Theatre in 1983.]
Example: Saying “mand bembers” instead of “band
members.”
Where does the name come from? Spoonerisms are
named after William Archibald Spooner [1844-1930; British clergyman],
who was a professor at the University of Oxford. He was a widely beloved
man with entertaining quirks. One such quirk is that he would often mix up
letters, which is why his name became forever attached to this phenomenon. You
can find many quotes attributed to him on the internet — most famously calling
for a toast to the “queer old dean” instead of the “dear old queen” [that would
be Queen Victoria (1819-1901; Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland: 1837-1901)] — but most of the time those are inaccurate. While it’s
documented that Spooner did have funny slip-ups, many of the quotes allegedly
“by” him are manufactured in the same way that many quotes are erroneously
attributed to Winston Churchill [1874-1965; British statesman and writer; Prime
Minister of the United Kingdom: 1940-45 and 1951-55] or Mark Twain [pseudonym
of Samuel Langhorne Clemens; 1835-1910; writer, humorist, and essayist].
Why do they happen? The way your brain turns
ideas into words is complicated, and there’s plenty of research still to be
done on the whole process. It seems, though, that spoonerisms occur because of
a problem in your “speech plan.” A speech plan is basically the plan that your
brain makes to move your mouth to emit sounds that convey what you want to say.
When you say “chocolate” for example, your brain has to tell your mouth how to
move to go from the “ch” sound to the “k” sound to the “l” sound to the “t”
sound, with vowels in between. This process is generally seamless — you
probably have never had to think about where to put your tongue and when — but
sometimes your brain gets mixed up. And these mix-ups are often because you
have two possible speech plans and your brain isn’t sure
which to use, so it splits the difference. Once in a while, this will result in
a spoonerism.
[Two possible reasons you
might need to think about how to make speech sounds are when you’re first
learning a new language or taking on an accent with which you hadn’t grown up
(e.g.: an American actor playing a British character—or vice versa). Someone
suffering from aphasia might also need to do this.]
§ § §
I first learned about spoonerisms
in middle school. We had study halls
scheduled during the school day, but occasionally the period would run twice as
long as normal. Such an occasion was
dubbed a “double study hall.” One afternoon,
one of my teachers announced that that day, we’d have a “duddy stubble hall.”
The teacher laughed at her mistake
and explained that that was what was called a spoonerism, and explained what
that was and even where the name came from.
Since that day—probably around 65 years ago now—I’ve never forgotten the
word or the expression “duddy stubble hall.”
Here are some more examples of
spoonerisms:
First, some examples attributed to
the Reverend Spooner (remembering Thomas Moore Devlin’s admonition above)
“Kistomary to cuss the bride”
(Customary to kiss the bride)
“The Lord is a shoving leopard”
(Loving shepherd)
“You have tasted a whole worm”
(Wasted a whole term)
“Is the bean dizzy?” (Dean busy?)
“Mardon me
padom, you are occupewing my pie” (Pardon me madam, you are occupying my pew)
Some other instances:
A lack of pies (Pack of lies)
Shake a tower (Take a shower)
Chipping the flannels (Flipping the
channels)
Wave the sails (Save the whales)
A blushing crow (Crushing blow)
Fight a liar (Light a fire)
Doggy fay (Foggy day)
Birty dirds (Dirty birds)
Bad salad (Sad ballad)
Cat flap (Flat cap)
§ § §
Mondegreens
What are they? This is when you hear something
incorrectly, but it ends up making sense to you anyway. Often, they happen with
music or poetry.
Example: One famous example is in Jimi Hendrix’s
“Purple [Haze]” [1967], where the line is “’Scuse me while I kiss the sky,” but
many people have misheard it as “’Scuse me while I kiss this guy.”
Where does the name come from? The name “mondegreen” originated in a 1954 Harper’s [Magazine]
essay, in which author Sylvia Wright [1917-81] mentions mishearing a line in
the poem “The Bonnie Earl O’ Moray” [may date from as early as the 17th century].
The line actually said “They hae slain the Earl o’ Moray / And laid him on the
green,” but she had heard “And Lady Mondegreen.” In that reading, it would be a
double murder, instead of a murder and a funeral.
Why do they happen? There’s some debate about
what causes mondegreens. Most psychologists agree that they often happen in
music because it’s a one-sided medium, there’s often very little context, and
singers and poets use words and phrases that not everyone will be familiar
with. The disagreement is how the brain comes up with the incorrect
hearing. Steven
Connor [b. 1955], a professor of English at the University of Cambridge,
has argued that if your brain can’t make sense of a lyric, it will simply fill
in what would make the most sense. On the other side of it, psychologist and
linguist Steven Pinker [b. 1954] has said often the mondegreens make
less sense than the original phrase. Therefore, he says mondegreens are not
necessarily what makes the most sense, but instead is what the brain most wants
to hear. Either way, they have become a funny cultural phenomenon.
§ § §
Mondegreens I learned about many
years later, but still sometime back in the ’80s or ’90s. I came across one somewhere, though I don’t
recall where, and someone parsed it and provided the name and source of the term.
Some More Music Mondegreens:
“Hold me
closer, Tony Danza” (“Hold me closer, tiny dancer” from Elton John’s song: “Tiny
Dancer”)
“The girl with
colitis goes by” (“The girl with kaleidoscope eyes” from The Beatles’ song: “Lucy
in the Sky with Diamonds”)
“Wrapped up
like a douche” (“Revved up like a deuce” from Manfred Mann's Earth Band’s song:
“Blinded by the Light”)
“There's a
bathroom on the right” (“There's a bad moon on the rise” from Creedence
Clearwater Revival’s song: “Bad Moon Rising”)
“Lorraine is gone” (“The rain is
gone” from Johnny Nash’s song: “I Can See Clearly Now”)
Other Common Examples:
“And to the
Republic, for Richard Stands” (Pledge of Allegiance: “. . . for which it
stands")
“José, can you
see . . .” (National Anthem: “O, say, can you see . . .“).
“Spit and image”
(“Spitting image”)
§ § §
Eggcorns
What are they? Similar to mondegreens, eggcorns
occur when a common phrase is changed to another similar- or identical-sounding
phrase.
Example: Saying “for all intensive purposes”
instead of “for all intents and purposes.”
Where does the name come from? The word was
coined by linguist Geoffrey
Pullum [b. 1945] in 2003. It is itself an eggcorn of the word
“acorn.”
Why do they happen? While malapropism are
word replacements that render a statement entirely nonsensical, an eggcorn
tends to make at least some sense. The phrase “deep-seated,” for example, is
often replaced by “deep-seeded.” While it’s not technically correct, it’s
pronounced exactly the same way by Americans and the meaning of the original
term — that something is particularly deeply placed — is still there. Eggcorns
also sometimes happen because a phrase is antiquated, and so the speaker is
unfamiliar with the original term. An example of this is people calling
something the “death nail” instead of the more proper “death knell,” because
who says “knell” anymore [see ‘knell’ in “Fossil
Words” (22 January 2026)]?
§ § §
‘Eggcorn’ was new to me; I never
heard it before I started this post. Of
course, it‘s the newest of the slips of the tongue, the name only having been
coined 22 years ago.
By the way, Devlin states that the
name ‘eggcorn’ is, itself, an eggcorn—for the word ‘acorn.’ He doesn’t relate how the word came to be
coined. I looked it up, and the story is
that linguist Geoffrey Pullum, in conversation with a fellow linguist on a linguistics
blog, learned of a woman who’d mistakenly written “egg corn bread” in an 1844 letter
when she meant “acorn bread.”
Pullum realized there was no
formal name for this specific type of mistake—where a word is misheard but
replaced with a phrase that is both phonetically similar and semantically
logical. He suggested using ‘eggcorn’ as
the name for the category because it was the perfect, self-referential example,
since the new word sounds nearly identical to ‘acorn’ in many dialects and an
acorn is roughly egg-shaped and is a type of seed or grain, much like a kernel
of corn.
Eggcorn Examples:
For all
intensive purposes (Correct: For all intents and purposes — Suggests the
purposes are thorough or “intensive.”)
Old-timer’s
disease (Correct: Alzheimer’s disease — Plausible because the disease primarily
affects older people.)
Nip it in the
butt (Correct: Nip it in the bud — Implies stopping someone with a physical
"nip," whereas the original refers to stopping a plant from blooming.)
Deep-seeded
(Correct: Deep-seated — Makes sense as something planted deep in the ground,
though the original refers to a position or “seat.”)
Mute point
(Correct: Moot point — Suggests a point that is silent or has no voice, though ‘moot’
actually means ‘debatable’ or ‘irrelevant.’)
Doggy-dog world
(Correct: Dog-eat-dog world — A playful but logical mishearing of a cutthroat
environment.)
Pique my
interest (Correct: Peak my interest — While ‘pique’ means to stimulate, ‘peak’
implies reaching the highest level of interest.)
Ex-patriot
(Correct: Expatriate — A person living outside their native country might be
seen as a ‘former patriot.’)
Escape goat
(Correct: Scapegoat — Someone who “escapes” blame by shifting it to another.)
§ § §
Freudian Slips
What are they? These are speech errors that are
caused by someone’s unconscious mind slipping up to the surface. Today, the
term has been generalized by some people to refer to any speech error.
Example: Freudian slips don’t have many general
examples because they are supposed to be connected to a single speaker’s
innermost thoughts. For an example from pop culture, there is an episode
of Friends [TV
sitcom, NBC, 1994-2004; 7 May 1998: “The One with Ross's Wedding: Part 2”] where
Ross is getting married to Emma. During his vows, however, he says he would
“take thee Rachel,” which is the name of his ex-girlfriend. The implication in
the episode is that he still had deep feelings for Rachel, and thus the error
ruined the wedding.
Where does the name come from? Sigmund Freud [1856-1939],
the famed 20th-century psychologist from Vienna, Austria, is renowned for
connecting actions to deep, unacknowledged desires. This phrase comes from his
work in The Psychopathology of Everyday Life [Zur Psychopathologie des Alltagslebens; 1904], a
book that has an exhaustive list of errors that he argues carry great
significance.
Why do they happen? While certainly a giant in
the field of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud is largely discredited today.
Cognitive psychologists [expert in the study of the mental processes involved
in perception, learning, memory, and reasoning] tend to believe that, for the
most part, there are more innocent explanations for the slips of the tongue
(some of which are mentioned in the other sections of this article). People
are more likely to make mistakes when they’re tired
or distracted, meaning sometimes the brain, like any other part of the body,
simply erred. But there is something tempting about the idea that someone’s
true feelings could be given away by a misplaced utterance.
If Freudian slips are a real phenomenon, though, they are
very difficult to test. How does one research the innermost thoughts of
someone? Well, in 1979, they decided to try with a strange study.
Researchers collected a number of “heterosexual males,” who were split up into
three groups. The first group, the control, was met by a middle-aged professor
and told to repeat word pairs that were designed to encourage spoonerisms, like
saying “mack bud” instead of “back mud.” The second group did the same thing
but instead of a middle-aged professor, they were met by a female lab assistant
wearing “a very short skirt and sort of a translucent blouse.” The second group
was more likely to make sexual spoonerisms (“fast passion” instead of “past
fashion”), but they made the same number of mistakes overall. The third group
was back with the middle-aged professor, but they were told that there was a
chance of receiving an electric shock at some point during the study, though
that didn’t actually happen. The electrified third group, like the seduced
second group, made more mistakes related to their stimulus (“cursed wattage”
instead of “worst cottage”). The results would seem to match the theory that
people’s mistakes are influenced by what’s on their mind.
There is some evidence, then, that if something is
particularly weighing on you, it could cause some sort of mistake in your
speech. But the vast majority of mistakes likely don’t have such a strong
subtext. When you ask someone for “pashed motato,” it’s not because there’s
something in your subconscious that switched around the letters. Even without
the psychological underpinnings, though, verbal slips can be a source of plenty
of entertainment.
§ § §
One night in a performance
of a play when I was an MFA candidate in grad school, a word came out of
my mouth that wasn’t in the script. I was playing a solder, the commander of a
unit in combat in which I was mortally wounded.
I was captured after the battle and
when I surrendered to the victorious officer, I was supposed to say, “I beg
you to treat my soldiers as men of honor.” What I said that night,
however, was “I beg you to treat my soldiers as men of iron"!
I don’t know where that even came from. Was it a Freudian slip . . . or
just a flubbed line?
The actor playing my foe was
standing face-to-face with me, a few inches apart at center stage. As I
spoke those nonsensical words, I knew I was screwing up, but it was too late to
stop, and the other actor—a pro from New York City, by the way—had a look of
perplexity and, yes, fear, on his face which he was fiercely trying to hide
from the audience seated on all four sides of our environmental performing
area.
We nevertheless went on as if I’d
said the most appropriate thing imaginable! (Later, I attributed the slip to the
title of the Polish movie Man of Iron, but Andrzej Wajda’s film didn’t
come out until 1981 and the show in which I misspoke was performed in 1976.)
Here are various examples and
types of Freudian slips:
The Ex-Partner
Slip: Calling your current partner by your ex's name, suggesting lingering
feelings or comparisons. (This, of
course, is the basis for the humor/drama in the Friends example Devlin
uses above.)
The “Mother”
Joke: A standard definition of a Freudian slip is: When you say one thing but
mean another. The joke version changes
it to: “A Freudian slip is when you say one thing but mean your mother.”
Unhappy
Greeting: Saying “I’m sad to meet you” instead of “I’m glad to meet you” when
you actually dislike someone.
Work Blunder:
Telling a boss “I'm excited to stop working here” instead of “start.”
Sibling Mix-up:
Calling one child by their sibling’s name.
(My mother never called me by my brother’s name, or vice versa, but when
she got pretty old, she did call me by my father’s name, though he’d been dead
for nearly 20 years by then.)
“Bald” Egg: A
waitress saying, “Here’s your bald egg” instead of “boiled” egg—to a customer who
has a noticeably bald head.
[Thomas Moore Devlin is the
editorial lead, and he has been at Babbel for over six years. He studied linguistics in college, and also
has a background in English literature. He
now lives in Berlin, where he spends most of his free time walking around and
reading an unhealthy number of books.]
* *
* *
“WHAT IS A
MALAPROPISM?
THE DEFINITION
WITH EXAMPLES”
by Steph Koyfman
[Also on Babbel, posted on 7 February
2020, comes a second article on another category of word errors.]
For all intensive
purposes, malapropisms are a fun figure of speech —
and they can teach us something
important about language.
When Welsh Conservative leader Andrew Davies [b. 1968] told
the Tory Party conference [Birmingham, England, 5 October 2016] “we’ll
make breakfast a success,” he wasn’t referring to baked beans
and blood sausage. What he meant to say was “we’ll make Brexit a success.” And
when he made this verbal fumble, he wasn’t just providing the internet with
more easily memeable content — he was unwittingly demonstrating a particular
figure of speech known as malapropism.
What’s A Malapropism?
Merriam-Webster defines
a malapropism [also often called simply a ‘malaprop’] as “the usually
unintentionally humorous misuse or distortion of a word or phrase; especially:
the use of a word sounding somewhat like the one intended but ludicrously wrong
in the context.
This last bit is key, because a malapropism isn’t just any
old verbal slip-up. By comparing the “wrong” word with the one intended, it’s
often very easy to see (or hear) how the mistake was made in the first place. A
pretty common example is “for all intensive purposes.” It sort of sounds right,
but the correct phrase is “for all intents and purposes.” Close, but no caviar.
The word “malapropism” actually comes from a 1775 play by
Richard Sheridan [1751-1816; Anglo-Irish playwright] called The Rivals.
The character Mrs. Malaprop was famous for her verbal gaffes, which included
such gems as “contagious countries” instead of “contiguous countries” and
“reprehend” instead of “comprehend.” The name Mrs. Malaprop, in turn, comes
from the French term mal à propos, which means “inappropriate” or
“poorly placed.”
You might also hear this referred to as a Dogberryism, after
the character Dogberry in [William] Shakespeare’s [1564-1616] Much Ado About
Nothing. Dogberry was also responsible for many iconic turns of phrase,
such as “comprehended two auspicious persons” instead of “apprehended two
suspicious persons.”
What Can They Teach Us?
The average malapropism provides us with entertainment
value, and that, in itself, is something. But they also signal something
important about the way language works.
Philosopher Donald Davidson [1917-2003] had a lot of
thoughts about malapropisms. In his 1986 paper “A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs,”
he argues that malapropisms are proof that the brain often grasps the
meta-structure of language and can correct for mistakes within, even if they
distort the literal meaning of certain words. In other words, we have the
ability to understand the intended meaning of a phrase, even when it’s slightly
garbled.
Davidson distinguishes between “prior theory,” how a
listener is prepared to interpret the speaker, and “passing theory,” how the
listener actually interprets what’s said. The speaker also has a “passing
theory,” which is what they intend with their statement. For communication to
occur, both passing theories must coincide. And ultimately, what this means is
that at its core, there are no hard and fast rules, or even rote consistency,
in language. Davidson writes,
“For there are no rules for arriving at passing theories,
no rules in any strict sense, as opposed to rough maxims and methodological
generalities. A passing theory really is like a theory at least in this, that
it is derived by wit, luck, and wisdom from a private vocabulary and grammar,
knowledge of the ways people get their point across, and rules of thumb for
figuring out what deviations from the dictionary are most likely. There is no
more chance of regularizing, or teaching, this process than there is of
regularizing or teaching the process of creating new theories to cope with new
data in any field—for that is what this process involves.”
Another neat feature of the malapropism? There are
linguistic methods to the madness. Linguist Jean Aitchison [b. 1938] noted that
malapropisms often preserve the part of speech of the “correct” word, and
they also often have the same number of syllables and pattern of stressed and
unstressed syllables. She argues that this suggests the part of speech “is an
integral part of the word, and tightly attached to it,” and that, by extension,
“the abstract meaning of a word is tightly attached to its word class.”
What Do Malapropisms Look
Like In Various Languages?
Many famous malapropisms weren’t necessarily the intentional
work of playwrights like Shakespeare — they come from public figures making
unintentional mistakes that will probably haunt them forever.
Here are a few examples of famous malapropisms in English:
“Create a
little dysentery [instead of ‘dissent’] among the ranks.” — Christopher
Moltisanti of The Sopranos
“No one is the
suppository [repository] of all wisdom.” — Former Australian Prime Minister
Tony Abbott
“He was a man
of great statue [stature].” — Former Boston Mayor Thomas Menino
“It’s not
rocket fuel [science].” — Former Scottish First Minister Henry McLeish
“Weapons of
mass production [destruction].” — Former U.S. President George W. Bush
“He eludes [exudes]
confidence.” — Former NYPD Commissioner William Bratton, referring to Barack
Obama
Do malapropisms exist in other languages? But of course! One
Spanish malapropism is so popular that it’s become a common expression in
Spain. Former Miss Spain Sofía Mazagatos [b. 1974] once said that she preferred
bullfighters who were “in the candelabra” (estar en el candelabro) instead
of “in the candlestick” (estar en el candelero), a turn of phrase that
means “very famous.”
Also in Spanish, the words pecado (sin)
and pescado (fish) are dangerously similar. It wouldn’t be
terribly hard to conflate the two and say that you’ve “committed a grave fish.”
In German, the word for Sisyphean task (Sisyphosarbeit)
and “syphilis work” (Syphilisarbeit) are also close enough to create a
live wire of verbal peril.
Essentially, any word that shares a similar sound, part of
speech, and/or metric structure could replace the “correct” word and create a
malapropism. The result is that we simultaneously understand the intended
meaning and find humor in the mistake. And once in a while, there’s
something kind of appropriate about an inappropriately placed word.
§ § §
True malapropisms are unintentional,
but many writers invent them to create humor.
Here a few literary and character examples:
“The very
pineapple of politeness” (instead of pinnacle) — Mrs.
Malaprop, The Rivals
“Illiterate him
quite from your memory” (instead of obliterate) — Mrs.
Malaprop, The Rivals
“She's as
headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile” (meant alligator)
— Mrs. Malaprop, The Rivals
“Comparisons
are odorous, palabras” (meant odious) — Dogberry, Much Ado
About Nothing
“You are
thought here to be the most senseless and fit man for the constable of the
watch” (instead of sensible) — Dogberry, Much Ado About Nothing
“. . . he is
indited to dinner to the Lubber's-head in Lumbert street . . .” (instead of invited)
— Mistress Quickly, Henry IV (Part 2)
“If you be he,
sir, I desire some confidence with you” (meant conference) — Nurse, Romeo
and Juliet
“Capital
punishment is a detergent to crime” (meant deterrent) — Archie Bunker, All
in the Family
Some real-life blunders:
Mike Tyson once
said he might “fade into Bolivian” (instead of oblivion)
Justin Bieber noted
he didn’t want a tattoo look inspired by the “Sixteenth Chapel” (instead of the
Sistine Chapel)
Yogi Berra was
famous for saying, “Texas has a lot of electrical votes” (rather than electoral
votes)
George W. Bush
famously coined the term “misunderestimated” (for underestimated)
Richard J.
Daley, the former Chicago mayor, once recommended “Alcoholics Unanimous” to
those with drinking problems (instead of Alcoholics Anonymous)
Some ordinary malapropisms:
Don't take me for granite (instead
of taken for granted)
Wolf in cheap clothing (instead of wolf
in sheep’s clothing)
Dance a flamingo (instead of dance
a flamenco)
Photogenic memory (meant photographic)
[Steph Koyfman is a senior
content producer who has spent over five years writing about language and
culture for Babbel. She grew up
bilingually and had an early love affair with books, and, later, studied
English literature and journalism in college. Koyfman also speaks Russian and Spanish, but
she’s a little rusty on those fronts.]
§ § §
One of the lingual slip-up that isn’t
covered in either of the two articles I reposted above is the folk etymology. These occur when unfamiliar words are altered
over time to resemble more familiar ones, rationalizing their form based on
mistaken assumptions. Common folk
etymologies were often driven by mishearing, foreign borrowing, or attempts to
make sense of old terms.
Here are notable examples and
types of folk etymologies:
‘Asparagus’ became ‘sparrowgrass’ when English speakers altered the Latinate name to sound more familiar
Bridegome became ‘bridegroom’ when the original gome
(‘man’) was replaced by ‘groom’ (‘stable boy’) because the former word became
extinct
Cucaracha
became ‘cockroach’ when the original Spanish pronunciation was mangled to sound
like ‘cock’ and ‘roach’
The Algonquian otchek
became ‘woodchuck’ when the indigenous name was altered to fit English words
The French chaise
longue (‘long chair’) became ‘chaise lounge’ when the foreign word was reinterpreted
as ‘lounge.’ It didn’t hurt that ‘lounge’
is a perfect anagram for the French word longue.
The Middle English
agnail was changed to ‘hangnail’ because it usually appears on the side
of a fingernail
The Middle English
shamefast changed to ‘shamefaced’ because ‘fast’ in the sense of ‘fixed’
or ‘firm’ (as in “hold fast”) was no longer common; it was rationalized to ‘faced’
because an embarrassed person’s face often turns red.
§ § §
Another type of speech error that
wasn’t covered is the malaphor. This is
an informal term for a “mixed idiom”—specifically when someone unintentionally
blends two separate aphorisms, idioms, or clichés into one nonsensical (and
often humorous) phrase.
The name itself is a portmanteau word
of malapropism and metaphor, coined by writer Lawrence Harrison
(1932-2015) in 1976.
One rather interesting occurrence
of a malaphor had an interesting repercussion.
In 1988 at the Democratic National Convention, Ann Richards (1933-2006),
then the Texas State Treasurer, famously said, “Poor George, he can't help
it—he was born with a silver foot in his mouth,” during her keynote address.
Richards was actually mocking then-Vice
President George H. W. Bush (1924-2018; 43rd Vice President of the United
States: 1981-1989; 41st President of the United States: 1989-1993), not his son
George W. Bush.
George H. W. Bush had a good sense
of humor about the jibe; after winning the presidency, he sent Richards a small
silver foot-shaped pin as a “peace offering.”
The consequence, some historians believe, was that this public skewering
of the elder Bush motivated his son, George W. Bush (b. 1946; 43rd President of
the United States: 2001-09), to run against Richards for Texas Governor in
1994—a race he won.
Examples of malaphors (you should
recognize easily the two clichés mashed together):
“We’ll burn that bridge when we
come to it.”
“He said it off the top of his
cuff.”
“It’s as easy as falling off a
piece of cake.”
“We’ll burn that bridge when we
come to it.”
“Does the Pope shit in the woods?”
“You hit the nail right on the
nose.”
“He’s burning the midnight oil from
both ends.”
“I can read him like the back of my
book.”
“That train has sailed.”
TV malaphors:
“How the turntables . . .” (The
Office)
“Get two birds stoned at once.” (Trailer
Park Boys)
“If we hit that
bullseye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards.” (Futurama)
“That kind of
buzz we should avoid in droves.” (The Sopranos)
Movie malaphors:
“Eat my rubber!”
(National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation)
“It’s spilled
milk under the bridge.” (Margin Call)
“You sowed your
own poison, man!” (Pineapple Express)
[Catachresis is the closest
to a "catch-all" term for all these speech and word errors. It refers to any use of a word that’s not
correct or defies conventional meaning. While
it’s sometimes used as a rhetorical device for poetic effect (like "blind
mouths" in John Milton’s 1637 pastoral elegy “Lycidas”), it technically
encompasses any strained or “incorrect” application of one word in place of
another.]
