Author Topic: Malapropisms, mondegreens, eggcorns, spoonerisms and others!  (Read 14524 times)

Offline southendmd

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Malapropisms, mondegreens, eggcorns, spoonerisms and others!
« on: November 02, 2022, 03:23:58 pm »
My interest in these funny expressions dates back to a facebook post in the "Way with Words" group.  It was the familiar "a such-and-such walks into a bar" meme, but with various parts of speech. 

Here it is, followed by some choice comments:

A dangling participle walks into a bar. Enjoying a cocktail and chatting with the bartender, the evening passes pleasantly.
A bar was walked into by the passive voice.
An oxymoron walked into a bar, and the silence was deafening.
Two quotation marks walk into a "bar".
A malapropism walks into a bar, looking for all intensive purposes like a wolf in cheap clothing, muttering epitaphs and casting dispersions on his magnificent other, who takes him for granite.
Hyperbole totally rips into this insane bar and absolutely destroys everything.
A question mark walks into a bar?
A non sequitur walks into a bar. In a strong wind, even turkeys can fly.
Papyrus and Comic Sans walk into a bar. The bartender says, "Get out -- we don't serve your type."
A mixed metaphor walks into a bar, seeing the handwriting on the wall but hoping to nip it in the bud.
A comma splice walks into a bar, it has a drink and then leaves.
Three intransitive verbs walk into a bar. They sit. They converse. They depart.
A synonym strolls into a tavern.
At the end of the day, a cliche walks into a bar -- fresh as a daisy, cute as a button, and sharp as a tack.
A run-on sentence walks into a bar it starts flirting. With a cute little sentence fragment.
Falling slowly, softly falling, the chiasmus collapses to the bar floor.
A figure of speech literally walks into a bar and ends up getting figuratively hammered.
An allusion walks into a bar, despite the fact that alcohol is its Achilles heel.
The subjunctive would have walked into a bar, had it only known.
A misplaced modifier walks into a bar owned a man with a glass eye named Ralph.
The past, present, and future walked into a bar. It was tense.
A dyslexic walks into a bra.
A verb walks into a bar, sees a beautiful noun, and suggests they conjugate. The noun declines.
An Oxford comma walks into a bar, where it spends the evening watching the television getting drunk and smoking cigars.
A simile walks into a bar, as parched as a desert.
A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking to forget.
A hyphenated word and a non-hyphenated word walk into a bar and the bartender nearly chokes on the irony.

14 Comments (original to the above post)
Joey Brode
An alliteration bops into a bar begging bitterly for better booze.
Lynne Steele Terzis
A homophone walks into a barre ...
Joey Brode
A double negative couldn't not walk into a bar.
Paul Southendmd
An ellipsis walks into a bar...
Paul Southendmd
Walk into a bar, an anastrophe did. (not mine, sounds like Yoda)
Paul Southendmd
A spoonerism balked into a war. (also not mine, but pretty good)
Paul Southendmd
A mondegreen walks into a bar on karaoke night and starts singing "Bohemian Rap City".
Paul Southendmd
An eggcorn walks into a bar, sees a man choking, and performs the Heimlich remover.
Joey Brode
Oy. So what's the difference between an eggcorn and a mondegreen??? this is getting very sophisticated!
Paul Southendmd
A mondegreen is essentially a mis-hearing of a phrase/lyrics, etc. and is usually nonsensical ("laid him on the green" becomes "Lady Mondegreen"). An eggcorn is a mis-hearing that is plausible (like Old-Timer's for Alzheimer's).
Paul Southendmd
There's also the "hind-lick maneuver".
Paul Southendmd
A girl walks into a bar and asks for a double entendre so the bar man gave her one.
Paul Southendmd
A Bostonian sheep walks into a baa.
Lynne Steele Terzis
A homonym passes the bar ...

And a new one:
A synecdoche hot foots it into a bar to give the bartender a hand.

Offline southendmd

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Re: Malapropisms, mondegreens, eggcorns, spoonerisms and others!
« Reply #1 on: November 02, 2022, 03:57:03 pm »
I used to think malapropisms was the umbrella term, but it has its own meaning. 

Let's parse them out a bit.  (from Merriam-Webster)

Eggcorn

An eggcorn is a word or phrase that sounds like another word or phrase and is sometimes mistakenly used in place of the latter in a way that seems logical or plausible.

An example might be a writer describing an order to seize and desist rather than the proper term cease and desist, the occasional instance of mixmash instead of mishmash, or cold slaw instead of coleslaw, or someone mishearing the word scapegoat as escape goat.

In these instances the logic comes usually from replacing an unfamiliar word or part with one that might be more familiar. Cease and desist is a legal command that might make one think of having something taken away (seized); mishmash has the notion of a confusing mixture in its definition; and coleslaw invites the interpretation cold slaw since it is served cold.

The term eggcorn--itself an alteration of acorn--is a recent invention (2003), coined by the linguist Geoffrey Pullum to describe the phenomenon.

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Re: Malapropisms, mondegreens, eggcorns, spoonerisms and others!
« Reply #2 on: November 02, 2022, 04:03:37 pm »

Offline southendmd

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Re: Malapropisms, mondegreens, eggcorns, spoonerisms and others!
« Reply #3 on: November 02, 2022, 04:06:56 pm »
Malapropism


Malapropisms have a lot in common with eggcorns?they involve one word being improperly used in place of another. In contrast to an eggcorn, however, there isn?t much logic behind a malapropism; it usually results in nothing more than a ridiculous or nonsensical expression.

The term derives from Mrs. Malaprop, the name of a character in Richard Brinsley Sheridan's play The Rivals (1775). The character, a society widow, is noted for using words ineptly for humorous effect, as when she calls a gentleman "the very pineapple" rather than "pinnacle" of politeness, and apologizes for having little "affluence" rather than "influence" over her niece. Frequently, malapropisms involve words of elevated vocabulary.

Mrs. Malaprop's name resembles the French phrase mal a propos, which means "out of place" or "unsuitable". The term malapropism began appearing in English texts in the 19th century.

~~~~~~~~~
Examples:

Archie Bunker, a character in the American TV sitcom All in the Family, used malapropisms frequently: he refers, for example, to "off-the-docks Jews" (Orthodox Jews) and the "Women's Lubrication Movement" (rather than Liberation). Intending to refer to the medical specialized field of gynecology and to specialist in that field as a gynecologist, he would mispronounce the words as "groinecology" and "groinecologist."

Former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott once claimed that no one "is the suppository of all wisdom" (i.e., repository or depository). Similarly, as reported in New Scientist, an office worker had described a colleague as "a vast suppository of information". The worker then apologised for his "Miss-Marple-ism" (i.e., malapropism). New Scientist noted this as possibly the first time anyone had uttered a malapropism for the word malapropism itself.

Marjorie Taylor Greene uses malapropisms in both communications directed at her base as well as when she communicates with the rest of the world, including references to: "peach tree dish" (petri dish), "gazpacho police," (gestapo), and "fragrantly violated..." (flagrantly), among others.

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Re: Malapropisms, mondegreens, eggcorns, spoonerisms and others!
« Reply #4 on: November 02, 2022, 04:21:41 pm »
Violins on television:


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Re: Malapropisms, mondegreens, eggcorns, spoonerisms and others!
« Reply #5 on: November 02, 2022, 04:24:36 pm »
Mondegreen


In a 1954 essay in Harper's Magazine, Sylvia Wright described how, as a young girl, she misheard the last line of the first stanza from the seventeenth-century ballad "The Bonnie Earl O' Moray". She wrote:

When I was a child, my mother used to read aloud to me from Percy's Reliques, and one of my favorite poems began, as I remember:

Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,
Oh, where hae ye been?
They hae slain the Earl o' Moray,
And Lady Mondegreen.

The correct fourth line is, "And laid him on the green". Wright explained the need for a new term:

The point about what I shall hereafter call mondegreens, since no one else has thought up a word for them, is that they are better than the original.

~~~~~

A mondegreen is a word or phrase that results when on misinterprets a line that is spoken or sung. A simple mondegreen is very much like an eggcorn, as when one hears "very close veins" instead of "varicose veins".

Many popular mondegreens come from song lyrics, such as "there's the bathroom on the right" instead of "there's a bad moon on the rise" in the Creedence Clearwater Revival hit Bad Moon Rising, or "the cross-eyed bear" in place of "the cross I bear" in Alanis Morissette's You Oughta Know.

Examples:

"The girl with colitis goes by" (from a lyric in the Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds": "The girl with kaleidoscope eyes")

That famous BeeGees song: "Bald-headed Woman" ("More Than a Woman")

That famous Neil Diamond song:  "The Reverend Blue Jeans" ("Forever in Blue Jeans")


Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: Malapropisms, mondegreens, eggcorns, spoonerisms and others!
« Reply #6 on: November 02, 2022, 04:33:44 pm »
[Marjorie Taylor Greene uses malapropisms in both communications directed at her base as well as when she communicates with the rest of the world, including references to: "peach tree dish" (petri dish), "gazpacho police," (gestapo), and "fragrantly violated..." (flagrantly), among others.

Well, she is from Georgia. ...
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

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Re: Malapropisms, mondegreens, eggcorns, spoonerisms and others!
« Reply #7 on: November 02, 2022, 04:36:06 pm »
"The girl with colitis goes by" (from a lyric in the Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds": "The girl with kaleidoscope eyes")

She's probably on her way to the bathroom on the right. ...
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline southendmd

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Re: Malapropisms, mondegreens, eggcorns, spoonerisms and others!
« Reply #8 on: November 02, 2022, 04:36:58 pm »
"Just let me staple the vicar."



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Re: Malapropisms, mondegreens, eggcorns, spoonerisms and others!
« Reply #9 on: November 02, 2022, 05:01:50 pm »
A reverse mondegreen is the intentional production, in speech or writing, of words or phrases that seem to be gibberish but disguise meaning. A prominent example is Mairzy Doats, a 1943 novelty song by Milton Drake, Al Hoffman, and Jerry Livingston. The lyrics are a reverse mondegreen, made up of same-sounding words or phrases (sometimes also referred to as "oronyms"), so pronounced (and written) as to challenge the listener (or reader) to interpret them:

Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey
A kiddley divey too, wouldn't you?
The clue to the meaning is contained in the bridge of the song:

If the words sound queer and funny to your ear, a little bit jumbled and jivey,
Sing "Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy."
This makes it clear that the last line is "A kid'll eat ivy, too; wouldn't you?"

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Re: Malapropisms, mondegreens, eggcorns, spoonerisms and others!
« Reply #10 on: November 02, 2022, 05:12:48 pm »

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Re: Malapropisms, mondegreens, eggcorns, spoonerisms and others!
« Reply #11 on: November 02, 2022, 05:18:45 pm »
Spoonerism

The other kind of error is the spoonerism--an  unintentional transposition of sounds.

From Mirriam-Webster:  "The name comes from a British clergyman and educator named William Archibald Spooner. And apparently, he just naturally came up with spoonerisms very, very frequently, and it seems, was constantly speaking to audiences. And so there are all these anecdotes about him just saying absolutely ludicrous things. There was a time when he was giving a speech and Queen Victoria was in the audience and he said, apparently, 'I have in my bosom a half-warmed fish,' when he actually intended, 'I have in my bosom a half-formed wish.'"

My favorite from recent talk radio:  that famous write-in candidate "Maxine Vandate".  Think about it...

Some others:

"Three cheers for our queer old dean!" (while giving a toast at a dinner, which Queen Victoria was also attending)
"Is it kisstomary to cuss the bride?" (as opposed to "customary to kiss")
"The Lord is a shoving leopard." (instead of "a loving shepherd")
"A blushing crow." ("crushing blow")
"A well-boiled icicle" ("well-oiled bicycle")

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Re: Malapropisms, mondegreens, eggcorns, spoonerisms and others!
« Reply #12 on: November 02, 2022, 05:41:08 pm »
She's probably on her way to the bathroom on the right. ...

 :laugh: :laugh:

Düva pööp is a förce of natüre

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Re: Malapropisms, mondegreens, eggcorns, spoonerisms and others!
« Reply #13 on: November 02, 2022, 05:46:14 pm »
What a delightful topic! Thank you, friend!  :D
"chewing gum and duct tape"

Offline Sason

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Re: Malapropisms, mondegreens, eggcorns, spoonerisms and others!
« Reply #14 on: November 02, 2022, 05:48:08 pm »
A reverse mondegreen is the intentional production, in speech or writing, of words or phrases that seem to be gibberish but disguise meaning. A prominent example is Mairzy Doats, a 1943 novelty song by Milton Drake, Al Hoffman, and Jerry Livingston. The lyrics are a reverse mondegreen, made up of same-sounding words or phrases (sometimes also referred to as "oronyms"), so pronounced (and written) as to challenge the listener (or reader) to interpret them:

Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey
A kiddley divey too, wouldn't you?
The clue to the meaning is contained in the bridge of the song:

If the words sound queer and funny to your ear, a little bit jumbled and jivey,
Sing "Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy."
This makes it clear that the last line is "A kid'll eat ivy, too; wouldn't you?"

That's what the father of Laura Palmer (don't remember his name) sings in Twin Peaks.

Düva pööp is a förce of natüre

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Re: Malapropisms, mondegreens, eggcorns, spoonerisms and others!
« Reply #15 on: November 02, 2022, 09:39:32 pm »
Spoonerism

The other kind of error is the spoonerism--an  unintentional transposition of sounds.

From Mirriam-Webster:  "The name comes from a British clergyman and educator named William Archibald Spooner. And apparently, he just naturally came up with spoonerisms very, very frequently, and it seems, was constantly speaking to audiences. And so there are all these anecdotes about him just saying absolutely ludicrous things. There was a time when he was giving a speech and Queen Victoria was in the audience and he said, apparently, 'I have in my bosom a half-warmed fish,' when he actually intended, 'I have in my bosom a half-formed wish.'"

My favorite from recent talk radio:  that famous write-in candidate "Maxine Vandate".  Think about it...

Some others:

"Three cheers for our queer old dean!" (while giving a toast at a dinner, which Queen Victoria was also attending)
"Is it kisstomary to cuss the bride?" (as opposed to "customary to kiss")
"The Lord is a shoving leopard." (instead of "a loving shepherd")
"A blushing crow." ("crushing blow")
"A well-boiled icicle" ("well-oiled bicycle")

I've read this one is apparently from Dr. Spooner himself:

"Mardon me, padam, this pie is occupewed. May I sew you to a sheet?"
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

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Re: Malapropisms, mondegreens, eggcorns, spoonerisms and others!
« Reply #16 on: November 02, 2022, 09:44:21 pm »
It was an honor killing. Lord Mondegreen discovered that his wife, Lady Mondegreen,  was having an affair with the earl of Moray, so he slew them both.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline Sason

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Re: Malapropisms, mondegreens, eggcorns, spoonerisms and others!
« Reply #17 on: November 03, 2022, 03:30:09 pm »
I don't under what category this fits, but here goes:

My parents were huge jazz fans, and during my childhood I often heard the big jazz names like Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday and.......Ellafitz Gerald  :laugh:

Düva pööp is a förce of natüre

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Re: Malapropisms, mondegreens, eggcorns, spoonerisms and others!
« Reply #18 on: November 04, 2022, 11:29:17 am »
I don't under what category this fits, but here goes:

My parents were huge jazz fans, and during my childhood I often heard the big jazz names like Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday and.......Ellafitz Gerald  :laugh:

 :laugh:
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

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Re: Malapropisms, mondegreens, eggcorns, spoonerisms and others!
« Reply #19 on: November 04, 2022, 11:33:46 am »
Here's another one that I'm sure I'm mishearing.

I should mention that I'm hearing this on our Eighties radio station, so the song could be, like, 40 years old, more or less. Plus, as DJs are wont to play songs without giving the title of the song or the name of the band, it's possible I never knew either.

So hear we go.

"Twenty twenty twenty-four hours ago, I want to be delicious."

(When was the last time you saw wont used in a sentence?  ;D )
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

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Re: Malapropisms, mondegreens, eggcorns, spoonerisms and others!
« Reply #20 on: November 16, 2022, 12:50:24 pm »
(When was the last time you saw wont used in a sentence?  ;D )[/font][/size]

I don't think I've EVER seen it in a sentence!

Here's a nice malaprop:
"Smith recalled that Joplin started reciting, ?Oh, Lord won?t you buy me a Mercedes Benz? ? the first line of McClure?s song. The four others then started banging beer mugs on the table to form a rhythm, and Neuwirth wrote down lyrics he and Joplin came up with on a napkin. Janis later introduced the song at her show that evening by saying, ?I just wrote this at the bar on the corner. I?m going to do it Acapulco.?--Joe Taysom Far Out Magazine"
"chewing gum and duct tape"

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Re: Malapropisms, mondegreens, eggcorns, spoonerisms and others!
« Reply #21 on: November 16, 2022, 01:39:42 pm »
Nice one!

Düva pööp is a förce of natüre

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Re: Malapropisms, mondegreens, eggcorns, spoonerisms and others!
« Reply #22 on: March 10, 2023, 10:26:12 am »
I guess I just encountered a mondegreen of my own.

This morning my favorite radio station played "Heaven is a Place on Earth," sung by Belinda Carlisle.

This morning I looked up the lyrics. One line is "Ooh, Heaven is a place on earth."

I always heard it as "Blue Heaven is a place on earth."

 :laugh:
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

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Re: Malapropisms, mondegreens, eggcorns, spoonerisms and others!
« Reply #23 on: November 09, 2023, 12:01:04 pm »
Came across a fun mondegreen this morning. Somebody mistook "Knockin' on Heaven's door" for "Knockin' on Kevin's door."

Also, not a mondegreen, but somebody thought their family was saying "Harvey darned" when they were saying "I'll be darned."
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

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Re: Malapropisms, mondegreens, eggcorns, spoonerisms and others!
« Reply #24 on: November 09, 2023, 12:26:02 pm »

Former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott once claimed that no one "is the suppository of all wisdom" (i.e., repository or depository). Similarly, as reported in New Scientist, an office worker had described a colleague as "a vast suppository of information". The worker then apologised for his "Miss-Marple-ism" (i.e., malapropism). New Scientist noted this as possibly the first time anyone had uttered a malapropism for the word malapropism itself.

Offline Chuck gave me several volumes of the "Ladies Suppository" (repository) a monthly periodical on Literature and Religion published in the mid-1800s. They sadly had all their illustrations removed, matted, framed and sold by  his  former employer, a print shop. He renamed the books when he presented them to me and they have retained that name ever since.

"Knockin' on Kevin's Door" will go down with "This is the cereal that's shot from guns" as the two phrases that have spoiled my listening pleasure the most.  :laugh:
"chewing gum and duct tape"

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Re: Malapropisms, mondegreens, eggcorns, spoonerisms and others!
« Reply #25 on: November 09, 2023, 12:59:58 pm »
Offline Chuck gave me several volumes of the "Ladies Suppository" (repository) a monthly periodical on Literature and Religion published in the mid-1800s. They sadly had all their illustrations removed, matted, framed and sold by  his  former employer, a print shop. He renamed the books when he presented them to me and they have retained that name ever since.

I suppose issues of Harper's Weekly from the Civil War aren't all that rare, but still the history major in me wanted to scream very loudly when I saw him desecrating a set of bound volumes of the periodical by removing all the illustrations. 

Quote
"Knockin' on Kevin's Door" will go down with "This is the cereal that's shot from guns" as the two phrases that have spoiled my listening pleasure the most.  :laugh:

I'm not getting that one.  ???
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

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Re: Malapropisms, mondegreens, eggcorns, spoonerisms and others!
« Reply #26 on: November 09, 2023, 02:26:15 pm »
Quaker Cereals appropriated Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, I believe, for their puffed rice cereal commercial.













"chewing gum and duct tape"

Offline serious crayons

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Re: Malapropisms, mondegreens, eggcorns, spoonerisms and others!
« Reply #27 on: November 09, 2023, 03:29:09 pm »
Have we talked about "Knowledge is power, France is bacon"? If not, you've all probably heard that one. I just came across it the other day and chuckled again at the idea that someone would go through life baffled at why people seemed to think the phrase was perfectly normal.