Miss Use and Mrs Malaprop
June 2012
© Adam Granger
I love words and phrases and the ways we use them. I especially like catching errors, whether by others or by myself. (I just learned last year that “enormity” is not a synonym for “enormousness,” nor “punctilious” one for “punctual.”)
In my youth, I was a prescriptive grammarian, grumpily predicting the extinction of our species thanks to linguistic folding, spindling and mutilating committed by uneducated and thoughtless vandals. Happily, my self-appointed mission has evolved into that of a descriptive grammarian: I now accept with equipoise the abuse heaped on our haggard old mother tongue and the inevitability that some damage will occur (let's call it evolution) and I try to remember that occasionally the English language actually benefits from such depredations.
By way of celebrating the inevitable, here are some of my favorite misuses, conveniently broken down into a taxonomy:
Misspellings and Homophonic Errors: The computer is responsible for dramatic shifts in both of these categories. Spell check catches the spelling errors, but not homophonic ones. In fact, writers have actually become less vigilant in this regard because of spell check. So while we're seeing fewer misspellings in print (such as “wherewithall,” with two Ls, in a recent Star Tribune article), we're seeing far more “to/two/too” and “their/they're” confusion. Happily for us recreational observers, misspellings still abound in hand-written signs, as in “cardomon” for cardomom at a local food coop and boxes of "stationary" at my favorite thrift store.
The Near-Homophonic Error occurs when a word is mistaken for a similar word. Sometimes these are simple careless pronunciations, as in “pasture” for pastor and “rapture” for raptor, and other times they're full-blown mistakes, as in the case of the newscaster who announced an outbreak of salmonella poisoning making the first L silent so it sounded fish-related. Other favorites are “bespeckled” for bespectacled, “to jive with” for to jibe with, and “hone in on” instead of home in on.
Misuse of a Word within a Phrase: When I worked at the Guthrie Theater box office in the 70s, people would call asking about “season's tickets,” confusing, I assume, season tickets with season's greetings. And people say “daylight savings time” so often that it is listed as an alternate in my new Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, even though the official name is indisputably Daylight Saving Time (my '38 Collegiate lists no such option). We are confusing “saving” in that phrase with “savings” as in accumulated assets. Honorable mention goes to “in regards to” for in regard to, and “I could care less” for I couldn't care less. It's easy to see where these evolutions come from, but they are, strictly speaking, errors. (In a class by itself, pun intended, is “graduating college” for graduating from college. To graduate college, one would take a tape measure and mark gradations on the campus buildings.)
The Malapropism is the classic error. This has come to mean any misuse of a word or phrase, but it originally required an element of humor or absurdity. The term sprang from Mrs Malaprop, who is a character in Sheridan's 18th-century social satire The Rivals. The work is filled with her namesakes, as when she describes her niece, Lydia Languish, as being as “headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile.” (Bonus irony: Miss Languish's name is, itself, allegorical.) An ex-neighbor of mine said that he was going to get an “activity scene” for his front yard for Christmas, and a contestant on The Newlywed Game said “crouch” for crotch and “groan” for groin.
Evolved Malapropisms are my favorite category of misuse, in which an archaic and unknown word or phrase is inadvertently replaced with a more contemporary substitute. Thus, although they were created via a lack of knowledge, they go viral and actually make more sense in the 21st century than the originals. Here are some of my favorite evolved malapropisms:
Bald-faced lie has been replaced by “bold-faced lie.” No one knows the term bald-faced anymore, whereas everyone knows “bold-faced,” thanks to computers. And the original intent is still there.
To set foot (as in a room) has been replaced with “to step foot.” This is a pretty old one, especially in the South. I used to hear it growing up in Oklahoma.
Champing at the bit is now “chomping at the bit.” To champ means to work the jaws together noisily, but who knows that? (If we're going to evolve this one, however, we should insert the right preposition, viz, “chomping on the bit.”)
I am hearing “wreck havoc” more and more in place of wreak havoc, and then, to confuse the issue even more, a Star Tribune writer quoted an unhappy citizen as saying, “This whole thing wreaks of wrongness.” Wright on.
A moot point is often called a “mute point,” which actually works: imagine two people who, having argued an issue into the ground, simply look at each other silently and shrug.
Here are more:
Buck naked is now “butt naked;" to all intents and purposes is now “to all intensive purposes;” to take a new tack is now to “take a new tact;” boon is now “boom,” as in “this was a real boom to the economy;” a consultation is often now a “counseltation;” lackadaisical is now “laxadaisical;” chock full is now “chuck full;” and tenterhooks—as to be on tenterhooks—is now “tenderhooks.”
The saving grace about all of these misuses is that the gist comes through loud and clear. We know what the local newscaster meant when she said a group of petty criminals “weren't the brightest knives in the drawer,” and when someone in financial trouble says he'll have to “eke by this year,” and when something is “on the up and out,” and when someone gets “thrown for a curve.” And we know what columnist Russ Douthat means when he writes that “President Obama is walking a fine tightrope,” thus combining walking a fine line with walking a tightrope. If original intent is the goal, it's there, so sit back and enjoy the evolution.
In my youth, I was a prescriptive grammarian, grumpily predicting the extinction of our species thanks to linguistic folding, spindling and mutilating committed by uneducated and thoughtless vandals. Happily, my self-appointed mission has evolved into that of a descriptive grammarian: I now accept with equipoise the abuse heaped on our haggard old mother tongue and the inevitability that some damage will occur (let's call it evolution) and I try to remember that occasionally the English language actually benefits from such depredations.
By way of celebrating the inevitable, here are some of my favorite misuses, conveniently broken down into a taxonomy:
Misspellings and Homophonic Errors: The computer is responsible for dramatic shifts in both of these categories. Spell check catches the spelling errors, but not homophonic ones. In fact, writers have actually become less vigilant in this regard because of spell check. So while we're seeing fewer misspellings in print (such as “wherewithall,” with two Ls, in a recent Star Tribune article), we're seeing far more “to/two/too” and “their/they're” confusion. Happily for us recreational observers, misspellings still abound in hand-written signs, as in “cardomon” for cardomom at a local food coop and boxes of "stationary" at my favorite thrift store.
The Near-Homophonic Error occurs when a word is mistaken for a similar word. Sometimes these are simple careless pronunciations, as in “pasture” for pastor and “rapture” for raptor, and other times they're full-blown mistakes, as in the case of the newscaster who announced an outbreak of salmonella poisoning making the first L silent so it sounded fish-related. Other favorites are “bespeckled” for bespectacled, “to jive with” for to jibe with, and “hone in on” instead of home in on.
Misuse of a Word within a Phrase: When I worked at the Guthrie Theater box office in the 70s, people would call asking about “season's tickets,” confusing, I assume, season tickets with season's greetings. And people say “daylight savings time” so often that it is listed as an alternate in my new Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, even though the official name is indisputably Daylight Saving Time (my '38 Collegiate lists no such option). We are confusing “saving” in that phrase with “savings” as in accumulated assets. Honorable mention goes to “in regards to” for in regard to, and “I could care less” for I couldn't care less. It's easy to see where these evolutions come from, but they are, strictly speaking, errors. (In a class by itself, pun intended, is “graduating college” for graduating from college. To graduate college, one would take a tape measure and mark gradations on the campus buildings.)
The Malapropism is the classic error. This has come to mean any misuse of a word or phrase, but it originally required an element of humor or absurdity. The term sprang from Mrs Malaprop, who is a character in Sheridan's 18th-century social satire The Rivals. The work is filled with her namesakes, as when she describes her niece, Lydia Languish, as being as “headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile.” (Bonus irony: Miss Languish's name is, itself, allegorical.) An ex-neighbor of mine said that he was going to get an “activity scene” for his front yard for Christmas, and a contestant on The Newlywed Game said “crouch” for crotch and “groan” for groin.
Evolved Malapropisms are my favorite category of misuse, in which an archaic and unknown word or phrase is inadvertently replaced with a more contemporary substitute. Thus, although they were created via a lack of knowledge, they go viral and actually make more sense in the 21st century than the originals. Here are some of my favorite evolved malapropisms:
Bald-faced lie has been replaced by “bold-faced lie.” No one knows the term bald-faced anymore, whereas everyone knows “bold-faced,” thanks to computers. And the original intent is still there.
To set foot (as in a room) has been replaced with “to step foot.” This is a pretty old one, especially in the South. I used to hear it growing up in Oklahoma.
Champing at the bit is now “chomping at the bit.” To champ means to work the jaws together noisily, but who knows that? (If we're going to evolve this one, however, we should insert the right preposition, viz, “chomping on the bit.”)
I am hearing “wreck havoc” more and more in place of wreak havoc, and then, to confuse the issue even more, a Star Tribune writer quoted an unhappy citizen as saying, “This whole thing wreaks of wrongness.” Wright on.
A moot point is often called a “mute point,” which actually works: imagine two people who, having argued an issue into the ground, simply look at each other silently and shrug.
Here are more:
Buck naked is now “butt naked;" to all intents and purposes is now “to all intensive purposes;” to take a new tack is now to “take a new tact;” boon is now “boom,” as in “this was a real boom to the economy;” a consultation is often now a “counseltation;” lackadaisical is now “laxadaisical;” chock full is now “chuck full;” and tenterhooks—as to be on tenterhooks—is now “tenderhooks.”
The saving grace about all of these misuses is that the gist comes through loud and clear. We know what the local newscaster meant when she said a group of petty criminals “weren't the brightest knives in the drawer,” and when someone in financial trouble says he'll have to “eke by this year,” and when something is “on the up and out,” and when someone gets “thrown for a curve.” And we know what columnist Russ Douthat means when he writes that “President Obama is walking a fine tightrope,” thus combining walking a fine line with walking a tightrope. If original intent is the goal, it's there, so sit back and enjoy the evolution.
