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(Mis)understood Words
Have you ever heard a word used by someone who clearly didn’t understand it? Sometimes, it is the pronunciation (corpseman, obgynie), sometimes it’s totally the wrong word. And sometimes, the wrong word almost makes sense — those are my favorites.
One of my first examples was in the 6th grade when the teacher was explaining the circulatory system. He kept talking about the “Red Blood Corpsuckles.” I was in my wanting-to-be-a-doctor phase, was pretty sure that was not right, and did my best to correct him. (I’m still in my obnoxious-kid stage.)
My first boss in “the real world” was taking a weekly Dale Carnegie self-improvement course when I first started working for him. I could always tell what the lesson for the week was. For example, in the “get to know your coworkers” week, he took me to lunch. During “improve your vocabulary” week, he told me he was being “undulated” by paperwork. I thought the visual image was actually pretty good.
A co-worker used to talk about getting “to the crust” of the matter and sometimes, he would argue that an item was a “mute” point. In both cases, the wrong word sort of made sense.
At the same company, a line supervisor used to talk about someone coming up with a “good ideal.” I think she was the same one that one that once referred to the roots of her hair as “hair fossils.”
It is pretty common for one of our dogs to figure out what we are about to do before we even talk about it. At one of these times, my wife turned to me and said: “He must have ESPN.”
Sometimes, I worry that I am guilty of this mistake at times. I’ve always heard “it’s time to go to the mat” with respect to fighting a particular issue. That made sense to me; I was a wrestler in high hchool and “going to the mat” had a specific meaning. In the last two weeks, I’ve heard the phrase “go to the mattress” at least three times. I am no longer sure which is correct.
What about you — have you come across any of these? I’m particularly interested in the ones where the wrong word almost makes sense.
Published in Group Writing
I have a co-worker who always says “…for all intensive purposes.” Haven’t had the heart to correct him.
I remember, as a teen, overhearing chitchat on talkradio one day about liberal legislators imposing a new syntax. This got me righteously PO’d. Did they imagine they could legislate the language?! The hubris! How Orwellian!!! And how hypocritical — everyone knew conservatives, not liberals, were supposed to be the linguistic prescriptivists. Good liberals should be busy listening to Noam Chomsky and others who say language can’t be imposed from the top down.
I was a nerdy teen who’d read a lot about linguistics. But I had never heard of a “sin tax” before.
Ignoramus, but your spelling is way funnier.
Seems like that would work out differently these days.
I don’t have any malprops, but I like this post.
😂
There are also some song lyrics that get garbled, like the old “Big Girl, Small Fry” (Big Girls don’t cry)
I’m not sure if it is an age thing or not, but I often hear people on the radio say what seem to be pretty strange things.
For example, the local National Parks spokesman’s name is something like “Mike Littoras”, so sometimes, I will hear him introduced as something like : “We will now hear from MikeLittoras about the traffic closures for the parade” The confusing part is that it is usually a male announcer making the introduction.
That comment may have opened a door that is best left closed.
Yes, on that note, I was just thinking about town and city names, such as:
Leominster, Worcester, Edinburgh, etc.
Leicester is another one. You can tell how much people know about the geography by the way they pronounce the names. Another is my hometown: Joliet.
There was a guy in my high school class named Mike Hunt. I can show you the yearbook page.
No I.P. Freely though.
[Please, please, please don’t redact this.]
(This originally appeared on twitter with the caption “You’d think she’d look happier”).
There was a weatherman in Columbus named Ben Dover.
I’ve been near Climax. It’s nothing to write home about. Now, Hell, Michigan is a bit more fun.
OP, the teacher who talked about “Red Corpsuckles” may have been a fan of William Bendix; he coined that malapropism on the old radio show The Life of Riley.
I had a fellow that worked for me on the production line. This job did not require a rocket scientist. He had an accident by hitting himself with a door while trying to exit it. It hit him smack dab in the eye. I sent him to a Doc in a Box to have it checked. He came back and reported that he had a hemorrhoid in his eye.
I had a minister once, who always used “magnanimous” when he meant “magnificent.”
Now, Midge, this was a LOL for me!
I used to “invent” words at the dinner table. Sometimes I just liked the way a word sounded with extra syllables added to it, like “best-est” or worst-est. I always made my dad laugh. I had to be careful, though; if he laughed too hard he’d get the hiccups.
Summer 1974 – my 10-year old sister singing along to John Denver’s “Annie’s Song” on the radio: “You fill up my bedspread.”
When I was a child, back when the planet was still cooling, I got some skewed ideas of the lyrics to hymns and Christmas carols. I thought it went, “Good King Wences’ car backed out on a piece of Stephen.”
“Deck Us All with Boston Charlie” made perfect sense to me.
My sister singing I’d Really Love to See You Tonight
Instead of “I’m not talking about moving in” she sang (still does) “I’m not talking bout changing the linen”
Many years ago I supervised a Master Sergeant who was very intellingent yet poorly educated. His malapropisms were legendary. The three I still remember:
1. A subordinate was taking subscription drugs
2. Someone had arterial motives.
3. He watched a movie about the abdominal snowman.
If you have never seen this video, it’s well worth your time:
https://youtu.be/UMYorpYNMKc
Kind of similar, my wife and I accidentally combine words sometimes. A couple I can remember are truche (true + touche) and fruitile (futile + fruitless). The words aren’t exactly interchangeable but stumbling over them makes me chuckle.
A frazzled coworker of mine once yelled, “I think I’m gonna blow a casket!”
Immediately, my mind jumped to the legendary exploding whale debacle of 1970.
The most infuriating one I had was an english major asked me to look over her paper for her in college and she had something like “give her her do” in it. I told her its “due”… what she is owed… started a big argument. Of course, I lost because who asks the math major for english work help anyway?
I am notoriously a mispronouncer. I married a man who is also horrible at pronouncing words. Chances are, we got some and don’t know it yet.
In one of his essays, CS Lewis tells of a man who mixed up the words “salacious” and “salubrious”. He would often talk about a seaside resort that was very salacious.
I’m Catholic, and one important part of the Catholic liturgy contains the lyric “Hosanna in the highest!”
My five-year-old self, naturally, misheard this as “Osama in the highest!”
For the longest time, I struggled to understand why good Catholics would worship such an evil man.
Would someone please straighten out Ben Shapiro on the meaning of “legitimately?” He seems to use it the way Joe Biden uses “literally.”