Malapropism

A malapropism (also called a Dogberryism) is the use of an incorrect word in place of a word with a similar sound (which is often a paronym), resulting in a nonsensical, often humorous utterance. An example is this statement by baseball player Yogi Berra: "Texas has a lot of electrical votes," rather than "electoral votes." Malapropisms also occur as errors in natural speech and are often the subject of media attention, especially when made by politicians or other prominent individuals. The philosopher Donald Davidson has noted that malapropisms show the complex process through which the brain translates thoughts into language.

Etymology

The word "malapropism" (and its earlier variant, "malaprop") comes from a character named "Mrs. Malaprop" in Richard Brinsley Sheridan's 1775 play The Rivals. Mrs. Malaprop frequently misspeaks (to great comic effect) by using words which don't have the meaning she intends, but which sound similar to words that do. Sheridan presumably chose her name in humorous reference to the word malapropos, an adjective or adverb meaning "inappropriate" or "inappropriately", derived from the French phrase, mal à propos (literally "poorly placed"). According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first recorded use of "malapropos" in English is from 1630, and the first person known to have used the word "malaprop" in the sense of "a speech error" is Lord Byron in 1814.

The synonymous term "Dogberryism" comes from the 1598 Shakespeare play Much Ado About Nothing, in which the character Dogberry utters many malapropisms to humorous effect.

Distinguishing features

An instance of speech error is called a malapropism when a word which is nonsensical or ludicrous in context, but similar in sound to what was intended, is produced.

Definitions differ somewhat in terms of the cause of the error. Some scholars include only errors that result from a temporary failure to produce the word the speaker intended. Such errors are sometimes called "Fay-Cutler malapropism", after David Fay and Anne Cutler, who described the occurrence of such errors in ordinary speech. Most definitions, however, include any actual word that is wrongly or accidentally used in place of a similar sounding, correct word. This broader definition is sometimes called "classical malapropism", or simply "malapropism".

Malapropisms differ from other kinds of speaking or writing mistakes, such as eggcorns or spoonerisms, and from the accidental or deliberate production of newly made-up words, neologisms.

For example, using obtuse [wide or dull] instead of acute [narrow or sharp] is not a malapropism; using obtuse [stupid or slow-witted] when one means abstruse [esoteric or difficult to understand] is.

Malapropisms tend to maintain the part of speech of the originally intended word. According to linguist Jean Aitchison, "The finding that word selection errors preserve their part of speech suggest that the latter is an integral part of the word, and tightly attached to it." Likewise, substitutions tend to have the same number of syllables and the same metrical structure – the same pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables – as the intended word or phrase. If the stress pattern of the malapropism differs from the intended word, unstressed syllables may be deleted or inserted; stressed syllables and the general rhythmic pattern are maintained.

Examples from fiction

The fictional Mrs. Malaprop, in Sheridan's play The Rivals, utters many malapropisms. In Act 3 Scene III, she declares to Captain Absolute, "Sure, if I reprehend any thing in this world it is the use of my oracular tongue, and a nice derangement of epitaphs!" This nonsensical utterance might, for example, be 'corrected' to, "If I apprehend anything in this world, it is the use of my vernacular tongue, and a nice arrangement of epithets", although these are not the only words that can be substituted to produce an appropriately expressed thought in this context, and commentators have proposed other possible replacements that work just as well.

Other malapropisms spoken by Mrs. Malaprop include "illiterate him quite from your memory" (instead of 'obliterate')', and "she's as headstrong as an allegory" (instead of alligator).

Malapropisms appeared in many works before Sheridan created the character of Mrs. Malaprop. William Shakespeare used them in a number of his plays, almost invariably spoken by comic ill-educated lower class characters. Mistress Quickly, the inn-keeper associate of Falstaff in several Shakespeare plays, is a regular user of malapropisms. In Much Ado About Nothing, Constable Dogberry tells Governor Leonato, "Our watch, sir, have indeed comprehended two auspicious persons" (i.e., apprehended two suspicious persons) (Act 3, Scene V). And in The Merchant of Venice, Launcelot, describing Shylock, declares, "Certainly he is the very devil incarnal..." (i.e., incarnate) (Act 2, Scene II).

Modern writers make use of malapropisms in novels, cartoons, films, television, and other media.

In Sean O'Casey's 1924 play Juno and the Paycock, Captain Jack Boyle complains that "th' whole worl's in a terrible state o' chassis [chaos]" whenever something goes wrong.

Leo Gorcey's character "Slip" Mahoney of the Dead End Kids and Bowery Boys was famed for his malaprops (always delivered in a Brooklyn accent), such as "a clever seduction" for "a clever deduction," "I depreciate it!" ("I appreciate it!"), and "I regurgitate" ("I reiterate").

Malapropism was one of Stan Laurel's comic mannerisms. In Sons Of The Desert, for example, he says that Oliver Hardy is suffering a nervous "shakedown" (rather than "breakdown"), and calls the Exalted Ruler of their group the "exhausted ruler"; in The Music Box, he inadvertently asked a policeman "Don't you think you're bounding over your steps?" meaning "stepping over your bounds"--which Hardy corrected, causing the cop to get madder at him. British comedian Ronnie Barker also made great use of deliberate malapropisms in his comedy, notably in such sketches as his "Appeal on behalf of the Loyal Society for the Relief of Suffers from Pismronunciation", which mixed malapropisms and garbled words for comic effect – including news of a speech which "gave us a few well-frozen worms (i.e., well-chosen words) in praise of the society."

Archie Bunker, a character in the American TV sitcom All in the Family, is also known for malapropisms. He calls Orthodox Jews "off-the-docks Jews" and refers to "the Women's Lubrication Movement" (rather than Liberation).

Ricky, a main character from the Canadian mockumentary-sitcom Trailer Park Boys, is well known for malapropisms; for example, instead of the phrases "worst case scenario" or "trial and error", Ricky will say "worst case Ontario" or "denial and error", respectively. Fans of the show have dubbed these sayings as "Rickyisms".

The character Oswald Bates as portrayed by Damon Wayans on the 1990s television show In Living Color was known for employing several malapropisms per sentence, albeit unintentionally. To make matters worse he was overconfident in his delivery of haphazardly acquired vocabulary insofar that he would often correct himself, or more descriptively he would "incorrect" himself by using retroactive malapropisms.

In the book One of our Thursdays is Missing by Jasper Fforde, Mrs. Malaprop is included as a domestic who deals with some technical matters in the Thursday Next series.

Real-life examples

Malapropisms do not occur only as comedic literary devices. They also occur as a kind of speech error in ordinary speech. Examples are often quoted in the media.

Bertie Ahern, former Taoiseach of Ireland, warned his country against "upsetting the apple tart" (i.e., apple cart) of his country's economic success.

Pugilist Mike Tyson famously stated that he would "fade into Bolivian" (oblivion).

Former Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley referred to a tandem bicycle as a "tantrum bicycle" and made mention of "Alcoholics Unanimous" (Alcoholics Anonymous).

It was reported in New Scientist that an office worker had described a colleague as "a vast suppository of information" (i.e., repository or depository). A former Prime Minister of Australia, Tony Abbott, made a similar gaffe: "No one... is the suppository of all wisdom".

The above-mentioned office worker then apologised for his "Miss-Marple-ism" (i.e. malapropism). New Scientist noted this as possibly the first time anyone had uttered a malapropism for the word malapropism itself.

Texas governor and presidential nominee Rick Perry has been known to commonly commit malapropisms, for example describing states as "lavatories of innovation and democracy" instead of "laboratories", criticizing fellow presidential nominee Mitt Romney for the "heighth of hypocrisy" instead of "height of...", and referring to the 2015 Charleston church shooting an "accident" instead of an "incident".

Philosophical implications

In his essay "A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs", philosopher Donald Davidson suggests that malapropisms reveal something about how people process the meanings of words. He argues that language competence must not simply involve learning a set meaning for each word, and then rigidly applying those semantic rules to decode other people's utterances. Rather, he says, people must also be continually making use of other contextual information to interpret the meaning of utterances, and then modifying their understanding of each word's meaning based on those interpretations.

See also

• Anti-proverb
• Bushisms
• Catachresis
• Colemanballs

• Eggcorn
• Freudian slip
• Goldwynisms
• Mondegreen

• Norm Crosby
• Spoonerism
• Yogiism
• Viktor Chernomyrdin

Further reading

• Weingarten, Gene. (2014-02-16) "An add homonym attack" Retrieved 2014-02-25.

External links

• The dictionary definition of malapropism at Wiktionary