Malapropisms

>Shelby, your post reminded me of another. I was chatting with
>a group of friends one day and someone mentioned that another
>friend thought the Sistine Chapel was the 'Sixteenth Chapel'.
>We ALL laughed, then one fellow (God love him) stopped
>laughing and said, in all seriousness...'it's the Fifteenth
>Chapel...right?!?' :+ :7
>
>Take Care
>Laurie:)

Totally ironic you should mention that, Laurie, cuz I just visited Rome with my sister for the very first time last month and was part of the throngs milling through the Sistine Chapel. I could have easily spent hours in there just taking everything in but naturally lines had to keep moving. It was pretty overwhelming...hey, in such a vast space there very well could have been a fifteenth chapel too :p ;-)
 
Maybe not a malapropism but here goes...

It drives me crazy when people say "Mute point" instead of "moot point."

Another one...when people are repeating a conversation and they say..."So so-and-so "goes". They should use "said" instead of "goes." It gets me every time.

Great thread.
 
Thanks everyone, reading through this is thoroughly entertaining...

Janie, love the 'Janieism':)

Shelby, nice timing with your visit...must have been a truly awesome experience!

I'll share another, I have a friend who, in response to a situation with her increasingly rambunctious children said, 'better go nip it in the butt':7 Now that would certainly get their attention!!!

Take Care
Laurie:)

edited for unintended malapropisms :+
 
I remember my husband and I were at a get-together for his unit and he said "Let's break the monogomy" instead of "Let's break the monotony". It was hilarious.
 
Well , *I* had to LMAO because when I opened this thread , for a second, I thought you were talking about "priapism" !! (hope I don't get those 2 words mixed up ever!!)

I always thought "idear" was a northeast pronounciation, It's said a lot in new england.

I've heard ALOT of the ones you talk about, too:

Nauseaus instead of nauseated
Orientated instead of oriented

and then all the kids ones! too funny coming out of children's mouths, but not adults, so much! LOL!

~Chris
 
Chris!! Thanks for increasing my vocabulary, I looked 'priapism' up. Sounds like it could be part curse, part blessing depending on which side of it you're on;-) :p

Take Care
Laurie:)
 
Jacque, I always thought people said "same difference" the same way they say "deja vu all over again". Just to be kind of funny. I admit to doing that. ;)
 
I love it when my little boy says "libary" instead of "library" but I can't stand it when adults get confused about words such as: "nauseated" and "nauseous", "infer" and "imply" and "eager" and "anxious." and I really hate it when reporters say "gone missing" instead of "is missing." But I'm a former journalist, so I tend to be a geek about it.
 
More mispronunciations rather than malapropsims but my mom says...

Bonanical instead of botanical
Orinental instead of oriental
(I LOVE her!)

My son refers to his pectoral as paturnips.

My sister says lemonlade instead of lemonade.

And I had a friend who always said supposebly instead of supposedly. Drove me crazy!

DH also gets bothered when people say Jagwire as opposed to Jaguar.

And a couple malapropisms my DH and I use for fun...

I call the church's Narthex the Anthrax and contrails are always entrails. :)
 
I don't want to "exasturbate" ;) the problem of malapropisms, but here's another one that really gets my goat:

I could care less

Ummm... that means you care. What you MEAN to say is "I couldn't care less".

I also have a coworker who always says "axe" in place of "ask". As in "Let me axe you a question" Ummm, no thanks, that sounds kind of painful!!!
 
>I love it when my little boy says "libary" instead of
>"library" but I can't stand it when adults get confused about
>words such as: "nauseated" and "nauseous", "infer" and
>"imply" and "eager" and "anxious." and I really hate it when
>reporters say "gone missing" instead of "is missing." But I'm
>a former journalist, so I tend to be a geek about it.

Yikes! I'm with you on the "Gone missing" terminology. Where the heck did that originate? It seems to be the common way to say it now, and it drives me insane. (I'm a former journalist as well! :D)

I guess I'm more into grammatical mistakes here, but another one I hate is failing to make certain words plural when they should be. For instance, "How many chicken breast(s) did you cook?" ARRGGHH!

Another one: "I am suppose(d) to be there on time."

The one that bothers me more than any of them though, is putting "at" on the end of a sentence where it does not belong!! "Where are you at?" ACK... please just say, "Where are you?"
 
Obviously this thread is making me feel better. I get a chance to vent about my pet grammatical peeves! :D

I just thought of another one that grates my nerves big time. When someone writes "WALLAH, my new painting!" Urrghhh... please spell it correctly, "Voila!"
 
>I just thought of another one that grates my nerves big time.
>When someone writes "WALLAH, my new painting!" Urrghhh...
>please spell it correctly, "Voila!"

OMG, THANK YOU! This one bugs me SO MUCH!
 
>I also have a coworker who always says "axe" in place of
>"ask". As in "Let me axe you a question" Ummm, no thanks,
>that sounds kind of painful!!!

I'm teaching a linguistics class in the fall, and according to my linguistics book, "axe" is an early variant of "ask". People used to use both interchangeably. Chaucer actually used both versions. Some groups of people continued using it, but eventually it became stigmatized as uneducated. So although it sounds crazy to us, it does have a legitimate history. However, I don't think I'll start using it anytime soon! I just think it's interesting how language changes.
 
And Krogers is the same way!!

And also adding an R to things like wash... like waRshcloth or I have to go waRsh some clothes!!! (My MIL says that!!)
 
Yes, it's cute when kids mix things up. What kid doesn't say psghetti for spaghetti? My dd used to call my cell phone my cellOphone. It's just not so cute when adults do it...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Our Newsletter

Get awesome content delivered straight to your inbox.

Top