I'm trying to remember a vocabulary word from my Freshman English class. It means someone who is always using big words but uses them incorrectly. This is driving me NUTS!!
Thanks in advance.
I suppose you could call such a person "Slip" (from the Bowery Boys) who was always doing that - or you could perhaps call the person a Malaprop - or a malapropist.
malapropist (adj. form malapropos) is likely what you seek, but as long as you're relating it to big words you should consider 'catachresis' - defined by Silva Rhetoricae as a vice in which a word is used in a context that differs from its proper application.
I'm not sure malapropist is what I'm thinking of.
The broader definition of the word is someone trying to impress others and make his/herself appear more intelligent by dropping big words without actually knowing the meaning of the words and expecting to get away with it because the person to whom they are speaking doesn't know the meaning either.
I suppose a vulgar, colloquial synonym might be "bullshit artist" or "politician"!
Yeah. I don't think malapropist carries the connotation of doing it to show off.
arghh! I remember looking at a cartoon with this word in! i knew i should've kept it! i shall think on...
Well, sesquipedalian describes the use of long words, but not incorrect use.
and obfuscation sets out intentionally to confuse or be ambiguous but I thought I'd throw it into the soup.
Such big words after a hard day at work.
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]
Thank you Zed. I'm getting the jist of it now.