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Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 2,154
Z
Zed Offline
Pooh-Bah
Offline
Pooh-Bah
Z
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 2,154
I did a quick google and found this:
Here are some of the original malapropisms from the lady herself: Mrs. Malaprop in Richard Sheridan's play The Rivals (1775).
In case you're not sure what it is that Mrs. Malaprop is intending to say we've put the correct word(s) in square brackets after each quotation.

"...promise to forget this fellow - to illiterate him, I say, quite from your memory."
[obliterate]

"He is the very pine-apple of politeness!"
[pinnacle]

"I have since laid Sir Anthony's preposition before her;"
[proposition]

"...she might reprehend the true meaning of what she is saying."
[comprehend]

"...she's as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of Nile."
[alligator]

"Why, murder's the matter! slaughter's the matter! killing's the matter! - but he can tell you the perpendiculars."
[particulars]

"I thought she had persisted from corresponding with him;"
[desisted]

"His physiognomy so grammatical!"
[phraseology]

"...if ever you betray what you are entrusted with... you forfeit my malevolence for ever..."
[benevolence]

"Sure, if I reprehend any thing in this world it is the use of my oracular tongue, and a nice derangement of epitaphs!"
[apprehend, vernacular, arrangement, epithets]

Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 5,295
Carpal Tunnel
Offline
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 5,295
Thank you Zed. I'm getting the jist of it now.

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