In my “day job” (ha ha) I work in the Safety Office of a plywood manufacturing plant. Recently, when reading the minutes from a Safety Committee meeting, I noticed that one of the topics of concern was a “radio alarm saw.”
That puzzled me for a second, then I realized they were referring to a “radial arm saw” and evidently the person taking down the minutes did not know what they were talking about and gave it a good guess.
I thought, “Hmmm. Radio alarm saw. That’s about what I need some mornings!”
Know any other good malapropisms?
Not exactly a malapropism, but had same effect on the lady who committed it. She was
helping her country doctor husband do a home delivery up in the hills. The father of the
was aobviously disappointed when he learned that the newborn was a girl,
understandably having hoped for a boy who would help with heavy farm work.
Quite innocently the doctor's wife inquired: "Couldn't you use a litte hoer?"
When I was stationed in London, one of the officers put in a leave request for "Whales." I asked him to report back immediately if he saw any.
This same officer also had a problem with mixed metaphors.
He told me had just counseled his secretary for some error she made.
"How did it go?" I asked.
"She walked out with ruffled feathers between her legs," he said.
Where lies the line of demarcation between malapropisms and mondegreens? Seriously.
i think mondegreens are lyrics-- fitting words to a tune, sometimes mean a different sylible is accented...
I know there is a song 'secret agent man... (giving you a number and taking away your name..) but it sure sounds like the singer is saying secret asian man...
Mondegreen comes for someone hearing the killed lord (so and so) and the Lady Mondegreen... when in reality the words were they laid him on the green...
YCLIT, since there is information on the Mondegreen page..
malaprops are heard correctly (it is the speaker who has serious messed up) Mondegreens are "mis-hearing" -- when we hear something, and its not quite clear, so we make something up, that sounds almost the same.. it is the listener who is fault.
The typical malapropism involves only one word. The mondegreens involve mishearing
a phrase - "laid him on the green" becoming "lady mondegreen"
I was dictating a note about a client which came back typed as " she also complains of pain in her empty head." What I had reported was pain in her foot in the metatarsal joint or MT head. (But apparently this is a mondegreen and not a malapropism?)
Hey Dubdub -
I would have said that a mondegreen is a misheard word or phrase - and a malapropism is a misused word or phrase.
Didn't I just start a thread about malapropisms not so very long ago?! [grumble-e]
but to add to this one, rather than that one:
One of my housemates during my university years used to say, to indicate that she didn't care about something, "That's no shirt off my back."
Re: she also complains of pain in her empty head." What I had reported was pain in her foot in the metatarsal joint or MT head. (But apparently this is a mondegreen and not a malapropism?)
well, the person transcribing the tape experienced a Mondegreen moment, and it resulted in a malapropism.
but i suspect, if you corrected the transcriber, and they learned that MT (said--Em Tee, or empty!) as a term for the metatarsal joint, they would be unlikely to make the same mistake. (well eventually, they would catch on that you meant MT Head... )
of course if there is high turn over in the transcribing pool, you will learn to say M T, (the letter Em, the letter Tee, head, not empty).
if i were the transciber, i wouldn't have known (first time round) that MT was short hand for metatarsal*. and if i worked for a pool of doctors, and i thought you were a shrink, pain in an empty head might even sound like a symptom a person might complain of!
(*and i know about metatarsal's, i fractured my 5th metatarsal in a fall--when i went to the ER, i told the doctor, i broke the bone in my foot, that was the same relative place as (and pointed to the area between my wrist and pinky)--until i broke it i confused metatarsals with metapharsals.. (hand bones)--i have never taken an anatomy class, but (crossing thread) have learned the names of many bones from cross word puzzles)
Sorry, MG! I searched under "malapropisms" and "malaprop" and came up with nothing . . . so I started a new thread.
So, "radial alarm saw" was really a
Mondegreen, eh?
I've always felt that a Mondegreen should involve something being transmorgrified® into a name, but I seem to be rolling my own boat here. Trying to split them into hearing and saying seems a little hairsplitting. You gotta do both to each before they are noticed. Maybe Mrs Malaprop got married to Lord Mondegreen.
mondegreen is in AHD4, which gives this: A series of words that result from the mishearing or misinterpretation of a statement or song lyric. For example, I led the pigeons to the flag for I pledge allegiance to the flag. here is malapropism from the same: Ludicrous misuse of a word, especially by confusion with one of similar sound.
so the source of both is in the hearing and the tetrapyloctomy comes mostly with words v. word.
Personally, I prefer pentapyloctomy: that way you get five joints - two front leg joints, two rear ditto and that delicious saddle in between. Marinated in red wine for 24 hours, then cooked slowly with onions and carrots and served with potatoes and a green vegetable - you havea dinner fit for a king and queen!
Oh, dammitall - I've turned it into a food thread!
the tetrapyloctomy comes mostly with words v. word. Shouldn't that be word vs. word vs. word vs. word?
Mondegreen comes for someone hearing the killed lord (so and so) and the Lady Mondegreen... when in reality the words were they laid him on the green...
And then there's that old hymn about the cock-eyed teddy bear called Gladly that goes "Gladly the cross-eyed bear"....
Dear Rubrick: The cross-eyed bear had many creators. Cross my heart, and hope to die,
when I was too young to go, my brother came home from Suday school, and told my
mother they had sung a song about a bear who was named Gladly who was cross-eyed.
my brother came home from Suday school
Not to mention discovering God's name:
Our Father, which art in Heaven, Harold be Thy name.
Some hilarious examples that I have recently read, come from Bush Jr. There is a whole list of them on Slate, complete with a Bushism of the day! Of course, not all Bushisms are Malapropisms, some are, well....
A recent addition and an absolutely priceless one too:
"I know something about being a government. And you've got a good one."—Stumping for Gov. Mike Huckabee, Bentonville, Ark., Nov. 4, 2002
To of Troy
Hope your foot is feeling better. You might want to check that crossword again, we call them metacarpals not metapharsals. But then the main reason we don't call them hand bones is to sound more eddicated and high falutin.
(would a meta-farcial be a really big comedy?)
Well, did anyone else look it up? I did--on Onelook.com. And there was only one reference cited: The All Powerful Tsuwm's! (I had to capitalize tsuwm here because he deserved capitalization given the fact that out of over 700 dictionaries, his was the only one--and so I quote:
"tetrapyloctomy
"The art of splitting a hair four ways" according to Umberto Eco in Foucault's Pendulum "
Bravo, bravo, bravo!
I most certainly did, Dubdub--via Atomica, and got the same (and only) result you did! He's really something, isn't he?
I kinda guessed you had, Jackie, given your response a few posts back above.
Mercy yes, I wouldn't have known that word on my own! I wonder if there are tri- and di-pyloctomies? Ooh--pentapyloctomy! Now there is a fun word to say!
Yow--what was that, a sonic boom? Oh--no, it was tsuwm, smacking his hand to his forehead.
it's a subject, like Mechanical Avunculogratulation or
Pylocatabasis. They all fall under the heading of Tetrapyloctomy.'
'What's tetra...?'
'The art of splitting a hair four ways. Mechanical
Avunculogratulation, for example, is how to build machines for
greeting uncles.' (74)
introduction
The above quotation seems an apt microcosm of Foucault's Pendulum: at
once amusing, bewildering, ironic, exceedingly intellectual, and eminently
unlikable. Umberto Eco's novel, only released in an English hardcover late last
year, is a second expedition into the novel form by the Italian scholar and
acclaimed author of The Name of the Rose
I tried teading it, and two pages was enough for me. Seems quite a few years ago, when I was
living in Oakton, VA. That would be about ten years ago.
It was also a hogwash word at one point, but that round was cancelled because too many people used the right answer as their definition. That certainly caused it to stick in my mind.
Bingley
Hey, you know what we all ought to do? Go to our haircut people and say we want a tetrapyloctomy. Then we could report reactions back here!
Ooh--pentapyloctomy! Now there is a fun word to say!
As in my post, above: complete with an implicit definition
Sorry, MG!
No worries mate! The search engine on here just ain't the powerfullest. I had called mine "Mrs Malaprop" (I think!) so I don't know why it didn't show....
Anyway, 'tis a good subject, and great minds think alike (as so many of the previous posts prove, too!)....
I didn't realize it was so obvious that Rhuby's post had slipped my mind completely!
From one of our HR people this morning (that's Personnel in old money):
"I've had this seed of an idea ruminating in my skull."
I mentioned trend beginning at work and a collegue said "I certainly hope you nipped that in the butt." (ouch)
We've had so many Bushisms, here's a Clinton contribution from the internet:
"Although Davis and Kenyon kept the audience rollicking with their presentation,
they were quick to caution their listeners, many of whom were physicians,
against smugness. Malapropisms can happen to anyone, Davis stressed, "no
matter how educated the speaker is." In fact, during a visit to Rhode Island,
President Clinton voiced his support for allowing mothers to remain in the
hospital after childbirth until they are fully recovered. According to Davis,
Clinton got a bit tongue-tied - speaking earnestly of reducing "drive-by
pregnancies" instead of drive-by deliveries. "
Isn't that just an updated version of the old slogan "If you drink, don't park -- accidents cause people!"
Driveby pregnancy = aerial insemination. Not easy, by a long shot.
"Although Davis and Kenyon kept the audience rollicking with their presentation..."
Does this seem like an odd use of "rollicking" to anyone else? I don't know why it does to me - it just doesn't ring true somehow. I looked it up and I guess it sort of works in the context - it just seems weird to me....Maybe I think of rollicking as being something that takes place somewhere other than in an audience - like, at a carnival or fun fair or the circus (clowns in the ring)....
Dear MG: I agree with you that "rollicking" describes the mood of the audience, not the
audience itself.ROLLICKING Definition: carefree and frolicsome; boisterous; gay and lively
My dear husband is an electrical engineer, and quite talented as far as mathematics, calculus and physics are concerned. However,
words are not his thing....
He has made quite a few hilarious malapropisms -- one of which I'll share with you.
Some time back we were on a section of our property, looking through a telescope at some bums who were camped on our land. We were trying to decide if we should approach them, or call the sherriff.
Well, I was looking through the telescope (which was 45x power!) at this group of fellows, and said to my husband, "oh, one of them's walking this way."
"What's he doing?" Richard asked.
"Uh oh," I said, "he's taking a leak!"
And Richard, indignant that I was still looking after I knew what the man was doing, said:
"You voyageur!"
I once made a horrific malaprop during a job interview that I desperately wanted for a variety of reasons. None more so than the fact that the job was a step up in elegance from my then current job, which was managing a retail store. The new job was an office position in a beautifully appointed office, in a handsomely built office building. I would have had my own office, with a view, and a bookshelf with crystal vases and pictures of my kids displayed on it. I would have been able to wear elegant suits with matching high heels (impossible in a retail job where standing was required 80% of the time) Yeah, I wanted that "posh" job very badly......
So, when the interviewer asked why I was interested in this middle management level job, when I already had an upper management position at my current job, I said: "To be honest with you, it is because this job would be very "cush" compared to my current job." At which point, the interviewer stood up from behind her desk, extended her hand and curtly said "Thank you, Ms 'Malaprop' (name changed to protect the innocent) We'll be in touch"
Yeah.....I really said "cush" instead of "posh" Oi, vai! I was all of 23 years old, so I guess it was one of those "learning experiences"
Ah, yes, I suppose that was more verbally clumsy of me, than it was a malaprop!