Choose Your Words Carefully, Pilgrim: The Grammar Curmudgeon Introduces Mrs. Malaprop
Mar 06 '03 (Updated Aug 07 '03)
The Bottom Line Proofread, proofread, proofread. How many times do I have to say it? Oh, and don't depend on spell-checkers to put words in your mouth!
Ever had that sinking sensation in the pit of your stomach that says, "Are you sure you pronounced that word right?" You know the feeling - everybody in the room seems to suddenly stop what they're doing and just stare at you! Like the time my grandmother announced that she'd bought a nice new dress in the "pea-tight" department (heck, she was only 4'9")? Yeah, we've all done it; pronounced the B in "subtle," turned "epitome" into a three-syllable word, or rhymed "misled" with "grizzled." It happens because we've seen unusual words in print but never looked up their pronunciation. Face it, spoken English is a bear - or, given Yogi's propensity for mangling sentences, it's a "Berra"!
Written English can be a bear, too. Once you get past the weird spellings inherited by a language that's borrowed from everybody, you still have to deal with a huge vocabulary, most of which has, again, been borrowed from everywhere. That can trip you up: you see, most people have two different vocabularies - one is those words we use frequently, the words with which we're most familiar and comfortable. Our other vocabulary is that set of words that we recognize when we see or hear them, but are just a wee bit hazy about when it comes to definition. Humans being human, after all, we have an embarrassing tendency to dip into this second portion of our vocabulary when we're trying to impress - exactly the wrong time to do it, it seems. The results can be quite comical for the reader. You hope they're laughing with you instead of at you (but they're not).
The blunder of accidentally substituting one word for another is known as a malapropism, a word that comes to us from a character in an 18th-century play* named Mrs. Malaprop (her name comes from the French mal a propos, meaning "inappropriate"). Mrs. M was, it appears, her generation's equivalent of Yogi Berra: a veritable fountain of linguistic errors.
Mrs. Malaprop is Alive and Well
You can't spend much time on-line without running into rampant malapropisms, and the reviews here at Epinions are certainly no exception. In reality, I think that written malapropisms are more common than they once were because of spell-checkers - particularly those that suggest words. You're struggling to spell an unfamiliar term and MSWord suggests a spelling that looks right, how are you to know that it's completely wrong! The short answer, by the way, is, "Look it up!"
Here are a few of my favorites from reviews I've read in the past few months. Please note, the sentences have been changed to protect the guilty...
...because it violates one of the prime tenants of the Catholic Church... Excuse me? I know the Church is in trouble, but when did they start taking in tenants (boarders)? Oh - you meant tenets (principles). Got it.
...before meeting Claire, he and his wife had had a monotonous relationship... Oh, come on - I've been married twenty-six years and it's never monotonous. From context, I'm guessing you meant monogamous, didn't you?
...franchises can become ludicrous business opportunities...Perhaps if you're the owner of a clown school franchise, it might be ludicrous (funny). But I'll bet you'd rather your franchise were lucrative (generating high income).
...Vachss is a suburb writer, and I eagerly await... Actually, Andrew's more of an urban writer. I suppose some might think him superb, though I'm not so certain.
...those who lack a social conscious... I guess perhaps those who lack a social conscience are considered socially unconscious, I really don't know.
...full of amusing antidotes about his life... What, his life was poisonous? Methinks you meant to say anecdote.
...[the author] eluded to the study, but never discussed it... Pretty elusive of him, don't you think? Probably meant to say alluded, though, didn't you?
...each character regurgitates into another... Ick. I saw that happen in a SNL sketch with Julianna Margulies, but please - who wants pre-chewed food, unless maybe he's a bird? In all honesty, I can't figure out what this one's supposed to mean. Anybody?
Homonyms - Again!
That old spell-checker bugaboo, the unconscious substitution of one homonym for another, will make a Mrs. M out of just about any of us. Here are a few choice malapropisms that I'm betting can be traced to that source.
...I am waiting for his next book with baited breath... No wonder you can't get a date - your breath smells like fish food! Trust me, you meant bated, an old term that means "abated" or "stopped."
...the 2003 model is chalk full of features... Doesn't anyone but me remember when you wrote on black blackboards with white chalk instead of white whiteboards with black markers? Whatever, you'd write on the blackboard until it was chock full of scribbling, then you'd erase it. There's a coffee brand, "Chock Full-o-Nuts." Or, as one of my profs used to say, "chucky-jam full." No chalk, though (although he was my carbonate petrology prof, come to think of it).
...his gradual dissent into poverty... Hey! Try dragging me into poverty, and I'll dissent, too! Nope, you wanted descent.
Upshot and Uproar
Malapropisms are natural (and naturally funny). They arise, linguists tell us, when our aspiration exceeds our vocabulary. When you're out there trying your darnedest to say something new every day, they're gonna happen. As far as I know, there are two ways to avoid them: first, don't use words you don't know (so expand your vocabulary, already!) and second, don't depend on a spell-checker to put words in your mouth. If you fall into that habit, you never know when your work is going to cause milk to come out of my nose at lunch.
Oh, yeah - it also helps to proofread!!
This is the fourth in a series of notes from the Grammar Curmudgeon, an irregular series of... what, "diatribes"? "rants"? "suggestions"? on improving the quality of your writing - not just here on Epinions, but every time you create a sentence, a paragraph, or even a book. Feel free to suggest further topics (I already have a generation's worth up my sleeve) by emailing me or leaving a comment.
See the previous Grammar Curmudgeon rant at Hobgoblins or catch the subsequent rant at foreign words.
* "The Rivals" by Richard Sheridan
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