Malapropisms

I love malapropisms. For the longest time I didn't know they had their own title. I just knew that they made me laugh. Out loud.

According to the Random House College Dictionary a malapropism is...1. the act or habit of misusing words ridiculously, esp. by the confusion of words that are similar in sound.

I just read a book with one of the characters fitting that description perfectly. It made me laugh more than once. I have a couple of words that just won't work for me and to fix it I have pretty much stricken them from my brain and try to use other words instead. One of them is version. I can't say version. I always think I am going to say version and virgin comes out instead. It is sometimes funny, always embarrassing and occasionally very inappropriate so I try not to say version. Here is an example...."They are upgrading our computer software to a new virgin....I mean virgin....AHHHH!" See, I just can't say version. So I don't even try anymore.

John has trouble using moot. He is always saying "That is a mute point." Ok. That one gets me every time! If it was a mute point then....no one would know because it wouldn't be spoken out loud. :) HA HA HA!!!!

A friend of mine has trouble with lots of words and it is just so cute because most of the time she doesn't even know that she has used a word incorrectly. The most recent one that I remember went like this:
B: "Angelica came over the other day."
F: "I think her name is Angela."
B: "Oh yes, that is how you say it...I always have trouble with that enunciation."

One of my all time favorites happened several years ago when I was watching a football game on TV. It was late in the game and it was a real nail biter. The team that was behind had the audacity to NOT follow any of the scenarios that the announcers had put out there has high probabilities and instead executed a trick play perfectly and faked everyone out and ended up getting past the defense and getting a touchdown. The announcers went wild and were in a frenzy of trying to describe what we had all witnessed and one of them very excitedly said "That was ACCEPTABLE!!!!" :) BAH HA HA HA!!!

So now you know. They are greater than a pun. They have their own title and they are everywhere....look for them....and report back so that I can have a good belly laugh.