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Malapropism

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A malapropism (also called a Dogberryism or acyrologia) is the substitution of a word for a word with a similar sound, in which the resulting phrase makes no sense but often creates a comic effect. It is not the same as an eggcorn, which is a similar substitution in which the new phrase makes sense on some level. Occasionally a phrase, rather than a single word, replaces the original word, for example Stan Laurel said "What a terrible cat's after me!" (i.e., catastrophe) in Any Old Port![citation needed].

Etymology

The word malapropos is an adjective or adverb meaning "inappropriate" or "inappropriately", derived from the French phrase mal à propos (literally "ill-suited").[1] The earliest English usage of the word cited in the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1630. Malaprop used in the linguistic sense was first used by Lord Byron in 1814 according to the OED.

The terms malapropism and the earlier variant malaprop come from Richard Brinsley Sheridan's 1775 play The Rivals, and in particular the character Mrs. Malaprop. Sheridan presumably named his character Mrs. Malaprop, who frequently misspoke (to great comic effect), in joking reference to the word malapropos.

The alternative term "Dogberryism" comes from the 1598 Shakespearean play Much Ado About Nothing, in which the character Dogberry produces many malapropisms with humorous effect.[2]

Distinguishing features

An instance of mis-speech is called a malapropism when:

  1. The word or phrase that is used means something different from the word the speaker or writer intended to use.
  2. The word or phrase that is used sounds similar to the word that was apparently meant or intended. 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) would be.
  3. The word or phrase that is used has a recognized meaning in the speaker's or writer's language.
  4. The resulting utterance is nonsense.

These characteristics set malapropisms apart from other speaking or writing mistakes, such as an eggcorns or spoonerisms.

Simply making up a word, or adding a redundant or ungrammatical prefix suffix (subliminible instead of subliminal) to an existing word, does not qualify as a malapropism.

Examples in English language

Mrs. Malaprop

All of these examples are from Sheridan's play The Rivals.

  • "...promise to forget this fellow - to illiterate him, I say, quite from your memory." (i.e. obliterate; Act I Scene II Line 178)
  • "...she might reprehend the true meaning of what she is saying." (i.e. comprehend; Act I Scene II Line 258)
  • "...she's as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of Nile." (i.e. alligator; Act III Scene III Line 195)
  • "Sure, if I reprehend any thing in this world it is the use of my oracular tongue, and a nice derangement of epitaphs!" (i.e. apprehend, vernacular, arrangement, epithets)

Shakespeare

Malapropisms appear in many works written well before Sheridan created their namesake character; William Shakespeare used them in a number of his plays.

Constable Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing:

  • "Comparisons are odorous." (i.e., odious; Act 3, Scene V)
  • "Our watch, sir, have indeed comprehended two auspicious persons." (i.e., apprehended, suspicious; Act 3, Scene V)

Launcelot in The Merchant of Venice:

  • "Certainly (Shylock) is the very devil incarnal..." (i.e., incarnate; Act 2, Scene II)
  • "That is the very defect of the matter, sir." (i.e., effect; Act 2, Scene II)

Elbow in Measure for Measure

  • "two notorious benefactors" (i.e., malefactors; Act 2, Scene I)
  • "if she has been a woman cardinally given"; (i.e., carnally; Act 2, Scene I)

Nurse in Romeo and Juliet:

  • "If you be he, sir, I desire some confidence with you." Benvolio then responds "She will indite him to some supper." (i.e., conference, invite; Act 2, Scene IV)
  • "I will tell her, sir, that you do protest, which, as I take it, is a gentlemanlike offer." (i.e., propose; Act 2, Scene IV)

Nick Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream:

  • Bottom says he will "aggravate" his voice when he really means he will "moderate" it. (Act 1 Scene II)
  • "lion vile hath here deflower'd my dear: which ...was the fairest dame" (i.e., "devoured", Act 5 Scene I)

The First Clown in Hamlet

  • "... crowner’s quest ..." (i.e. coroner's inquest; Act 5, Scene I)

Roland Williams in Hamlet

  • "... 'Layton's Terms" ..."

Malapropisms by other writers of fiction

  • Tabitha Bramble and Winifred Jenkins, two characters in Tobias Smollett's 1771 novel Humphrey Clinker, are founts of malapropisms:
    • Tabitha: "I know that hussy, Mary Jones, loves to be rumping (i.e. romping) with the men."
    • Winifred: "You that live in the country have no deception (i.e. conception) of our doings at Bath."
  • Lee McKinney, the main character of the JoAnna Carl "Chocoholic Mysteries" tends to use malapropisms when nervous:
    • She looked sharply at me. "Am I trashing?" I said. "I mean, am I trespassing?"

Malapropisms by cartoonists

  • "I'm going to get tutored!" (i.e., neutered)- One dog bragging to another in a Gary Larson Far Side cartoon. This could also be considered a mondegreen since the dog misheard his master.

Malapropisms by characters in films and television shows

  • Archie Bunker from the American TV sitcom All in the Family was known for malapropisms of words and names:
    • "The hookeries and massageries...the whole world is turning into a regular Sodom and Glocca Morra." (i.e., Gomorrah)
    • "Off-the-docks Jews" (i.e., Orthodox Jews)
    • "A woman doctor is only good for women's problems...like your groinocology." (i.e., Gynaecology)
    • "I ain't a man of carnival instinctuals like you." (i.e., carnal instincts)
    • "All girls go cockeyed during pooberescency." (i.e., puberty)
    • "A Menstrual show" (i.e., minstrel)
    • "Irene Lorenzo, Queen of the Women's Lubrication Movement." (i.e., Liberation)
    • "Buy of them battery operated transvestite radios." (i.e., transistor)
    • "In her elastic stockings, next to her very close veins." (i.e., varicose)
    • "George Meaney, head of the UFO-CIA." (i.e., AFL-CIO)
    • "The first priorority is that I'm the sick one" (i.e., priority)
    • "To my dear daughter Gloria Bunker, whom I forgive for marrying the Meathead, I leave my living room chair as a centralpiece in her someday living room" (i.e., centerpiece)
    • "Last will and tentacle..." (i.e., testament)
    • "Patience is a virgin." (i.e., virtue)
    • "A Polack art exhibit!" (i.e., Jackson Pollock).
    • "As youse people say, Sh-boom." (i.e., shalom)
  • Stan Laurel often used malapropisms in the Laurel and Hardy films:
    • "We heard the ocean is infatuated with sharks" (i.e., infested, although Ollie erroneously corrects him as meaning infuriated) - The Live Ghost.
    • "What a terrible cat's after me!" (i.e., catastrophe) - Any Old Port!
    • "We'd like a room with a southern explosion" (i.e., exposure) - Any Old Port!
    • "The doctor said I might get hydrophosphates" (i.e., hydrophobia) - Helpmates
    • "We floundered in a typhoid" (i.e., typhoon) - Sons of the Desert
    • "We're like two peas in a pot" (i.e., pod) - Sons of the Desert
  • A great many cartoon writers use the form as well:
    • "Brudder, you got a preposition" and "That thing will give you a conclusion of the brain" (i.e., Proposition, concussion or possibly contusion) - Bugs Bunny
    • "My uncle had a problem with his probate and he had to take these big pills and drink lots of water." (i.e., prostate) - Roger Rabbit from Who Framed Roger Rabbit
    • "The ironing is delicious." (i.e., irony) - The Simpsons' Bart Simpson, after finding Lisa in detention.[3]
    • "As Bob is my witless."(i.e,God, witness) - Rugrats
  • Officer Crabtree of the British comedy program, 'Allo 'Allo, speaks atrocious French, which is rendered in the series as English filled with malapropisms. For example, he recalls a "nit on the bonk of the Thames" (i.e., night, bank) with a female "secret urgent" (i.e. agent). Another regular of his is his greeting when he enters René's Café: "Good Moaning" (i.e., Good morning)

Malapropisms by real people

  • Malapropisms are often quoted in the media:
    • It was reported in New Scientist that an office worker described a colleague as "a vast suppository of information". (i.e., repository) The worker then apologised for his "Miss-Marple-ism". (i.e. malapropism) [4] New Scientist reported it as possibly the first time malapropism has been turned into a malapropism.
    • Time reported Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern as warning his country against "upsetting the apple tart" (ie., apple cart) of his country's economic success.[5]
    • "It's great to be back on terracotta!" (i.e., terra firma) — John Prescott, a British politician echoing Del Boy (see above).[6]
    • "Mathematics are one of the fundamentaries (i.e., fundamentals) of educationalizing (i.e., educating) our youths." — George W. Bush
  • The titles of the tracks "A Hard Day's Night" and "Tomorrow Never Knows" by The Beatles are both "Ringoisms", or malapropisms by Ringo Starr.
  • "Mr Speaker, you are the anecdote to verbal diarrhoea- [Laughter]" — Tobias Ellwood, MP for Bournemouth East, UK [7]
    • "Order. I think the word for which the hon. Gentleman was vainly searching was probably "antidote"." — John Bercow, MP, Speaker of the House, UK[8]
    • "I congratulate my hon. Friend on a good recovery. If I may say so, Mrs Malaprop would have been proud of him." — Sir George Young, MP for NW Hampshire, UK[9]

Examples in the Russian language

  • The word rynda for "ship's bell". The English phrase "Ring the bell!" was heard by Russian seamen as "Ryndu bey!", i.e., "Hit the rynda", rynda being the word for the tsar's bodyguard. Accordingly, the phrase "to hit the rynda" was used to mean "to signal time with the ship's bell", and later the bell itself has become commonly known as ship's "rynda".[10][11]

Philosophical significance

In the essay "A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs", philosopher Donald Davidson argues that malapropisms demonstrate that competence in a language is not a matter of applying rigid rules to the decoding of utterances. Rather, says Davidson, it appears that in interpreting others, people constantly modify their own understanding of our language.[12]

See also

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References

  1. ^ Simpson, John (ed.) 2008. Oxford English Dictionary. London: Oxford University Press.
  2. ^ Berger, Harry (2005). Situated Utterances. Fordham University Press. p. 499. ISBN 0823224295.
  3. ^ The Simpsons: "Lisa's Date with Density"
  4. ^ http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18625042.600-feedback.html New Scientist 18 June 2005 Malapropism for malapropism
  5. ^ Mayer, Catherine (2007-04-26). "Mr. Popularity". Time. Retrieved 2010-05-12.
  6. ^ John Prescott Profile - BBC News
  7. ^ Commons Debates 2010-11-26 Tobias Ellwood - TheyWorkForYou.com
  8. ^ Commons Debates 2010-11-26 John Bercow - TheyWorkForYou.com
  9. ^ Commons Debates 2010-11-26 Sir George Young - TheyWorkForYou.com
  10. ^ Lev Uspensky, "A Word about Words", Template:Ru icon
  11. ^ Max Vasmer, "Russisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch"
  12. ^ Grandy, R. and Warner, R., ed. (1986). Philosophical Grounds of Rationality. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198244649.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
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