Malapropism

3 Key excerpts on "Malapropism"

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  eBook - ePub

  The Language of Humour

  • Walter Nash(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  and a nice derangement of epitaphs).

  In such cases, the propensity to error is a kind of malady, which we label with the suffix-ism; we speak of Spoonerisms, Goldwynisms, Malapropisms. Some patients, however, are not above the suspicion of cunningly reproducing and marketing their own symptoms, or of encouraging others to do so (it is sometimes said that Sam Goldwyn knew perfectly well what he was doing). There is a type of designed humour that seizes on the possibilities of innocent error. Take, for example, the humour of ambiguity. Some ambiguities are merely hapless howlers, eg the case of the shopkeeper who advertised in her local paper that Mrs X has cast off clothing of all descriptions, and invites inspection, or that of the memorial erected to the memory of James Macmillan, drowned in the Severn by some of his closest friends. These untutored instances remind us that English has syntactic snares that can be artfully sprung:

  Would you rather an elephant attacked you or a gorilla? – I’d rather he attacked the gorilla.

  A further source of haphazard humour is the typographical error. James Thurber provides the following instances:

  There’s no business like shoe business. The gates of Hell shall now prevail. A stitch in time saves none.

  The happiness of literal errors like these is that the misplacing of one small letter completely subverts or gainsays the sense of an assertion. The proverb A stitch in time saves nine is a precautionary wisdom, the force of which is rudely negated when nine is misprinted as none. A funny misprint is thus a casual invitation to irreverence. The subversive humour of the literal error is the point of an academic joke that once circulated in the Senior Common Room at a certain British university. On the retirement of an eminent Vice Chancellor, the Senate commissioned a portrait bust, on the plinth of which was to be inscribed the words Invenit collegium, reliquit universitatem, ‘He found a college; he left a university’. Unfortunately, the craftsman entrusted with the carving and gilding of the inscription made a small mistake, and when the bust was unveiled its message was seen to read Invenit collegam, reliquit universitatem

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  English Vocabulary Today

  Into the 21st Century

  • Barry Blake, Barry J. Blake(Authors)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  mal à  propos ). At one point she describes someone as ‘the very pineapple of politeness’ when she presumably means ‘the very pinnacle of politeness’, and a young woman is said to be ‘as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of Nile’, presumably meaning ‘alligator’.

  Sheridan introduces these Malapropisms for comic effect, but he was not the first to do so. Shakespeare, for instance, has a character Dogberry, who is given to confusing similar words: One word, sir: our watch, sir, have indeed comprehended two aspicious persons, and we would have them this morning examined before your worship.

  Act III, Scene V

  The practice continues. Stan Laurel of Laurel-and-Hardy fame used Malapropisms such as exhausted ruler for ‘exalted ruler’, and Carroll O’Connor, playing Archie Bunker in the TV comedy series All in the Family , would refer to the Women’s Lubrication Movement (Liberation), an error reflecting his lack of sympathy for feminism. The suburban housewives in the Australian TV series Kath and Kim are always striving to be effluent (affluent).

  Malapropisms are not found exclusively in comic literature. They occur in real life. Former US president George W. Bush is noted for frequent lapses in grammar and logic. His repertoire of errors also included the odd Malapropism.

  We have enough coal to last for 250 years, yet coal also prevents (presents) an environmental challenge.

  Washington, D.C., April 20, 2005

  We’ll let our friends be the peacekeepers and the great country called America will be the pacemakers (peacemakers).

  Houston, Texas, Sept. 6, 2000

  Tony Abbott, Australian prime minister (2013-15), is recorded as saying that, ‘No one, however smart, however well-educated, however experienced is the suppository (repository) of all wisdom.’1

  The substitution of flaunt for flout is a recurring phenomenon. In an article in The Sydney Morning Herald someone wrote, ‘No European company with operations in the US would dare flout the US Treasury.’ When this was quoted a few days later in the Melbourne Age , it became, ‘No European company with operations in the US would dare flaunt the US Treasury.’2

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  Dramatic Adventures in Rhetoric

  A Guide for Actors, Directors and Playwrights

  • Giles Taylor, Philip Wilson(Authors)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Oberon Books

    (Publisher)

  Malapropism the character remains oblivious to their mistake.

  Overwhelmed by the well-bred attentions of Captain Absolute, Mrs Malaprop pronounces him ‘the very pineapple of politeness!’ – intending to say pinnacle. She denounces Lydia as being ‘as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile’ – meaning, of course, an alligator; and she asks her to forget Ensign Beverley, ‘to illiterate him, I say, quite from your memory’; instead of obliterate. And enjoy this riot of inaccuracy:

  MRS MALAPROP : I am sure I have done everything in my power since I exploded the affair! Long ago I laid my positive conjunctions on her, never to think on the fellow again – I have since laid Sir Anthony’s preposition before her – but I’m sorry to say she seems resolved to decline every particle that I enjoin her.

  Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The Rivals (1775)

  Need some help? She uses ‘exploded’ for exposed, ‘conjunctions’ for injunctions, ‘preposition’ for proposition and ‘particle’ for article. Glorious!

  This device is also known as

  DOGBERRYISM

  , after Constable Dogberry in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing (c.1598). Preceding Mrs Malaprop by almost two hundred years, he makes such statements as ‘comparisons are odorous’ (meaning odious), and ‘Is our whole dissembly appeared?’ (meaning assembly), along with the declaration that:

  DOGBERRY : Our watch, sir, have indeed comprehended two auspicious persons.

  He means, of course, ‘apprehended’ and ‘suspicious’.

  Dogberry is not the only Shakespearean character who indulges in this device. Abraham Slender, nervous suitor to Anne Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor (c.1598), says ‘I will marry her – that I am freely dissolved, and that dissolutely’; meaning resolved and resolutely. Mistress Quickly in the same play has all manner of linguistic quirks, but often says ‘speciously’ when she means specially. Launce in The Two Gentlemen of Verona (c.1591) says ‘I have received my proportion, like the prodigious son’, meaning that he has received his portion like the prodigal

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