[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
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 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 “egg corn 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 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?
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’en 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 a bashful 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. Checkmate.”
(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.]
