Funny Malapropisms - Cheeky Quote Day! 2 Dec 2009

*** Those funny slips of the tongue that come out weird and ridiculous!

From Denny: OK, we have all done it at one time or another. The key to good communication and understanding with others is to, well, avoid those slips of the tongue – or brain – whichever the case may be and speak something that comes out as absolutely weird and ridiculous nonsense.

What’s a malapropism? It’s one of those Freudian nuisances that have long plagued humanity – and politicians. We will get to that in a moment. A malapropism is really the unintentional use of a wrong word or strings of words into a phrase (compounding the problem) that causes confusion with the listeners as to what you truly meant to utter.

OK, so it’s unintentional and a humorous misuse or distortion of the word or phrase. A malapropism is especially effective because though it sounds a lot like the intended word so that it ends up ludicrously wrong in the context! What’s worse is if you make a habit of talking like this.

It often happens to those former CEOs turned politicians who fried their brains on cocaine, meth or soaked it in too much alcohol like former President George W. Bush and his fellow alcoholic druggie VP Dick Cheney. With all the conflicting drugs Cheney takes - that overwhelms his liver - it's no surprise as to why he's so mean-spirited toward others. Too many drugs can make you cranky and negative like the Darth Vadar character to which he is compared every Halloween. It was frightening to realize these two guys who couldn't think straight, for a variety of reasons, had their fingers on nuclear weapons. It's also comforting to know they are out of office.



Often words that sound similar are substituted for the correct word choice and then you are off and running into the arena of the ridiculous. Comedy writers have leaned heavily on this speech/brain mistake for laughs, especially in TV writing. It takes a lot of writing talent to use the technique properly but we won’t get into that today. Today we are showing funny quotes and funny video.

During the Bush years, when an international audience had to endure some really awful speeches and choppy weird informal talks from Bush, his spin team tried to convince people this was some kind of genetic condition. They also tried to convince us he fell off his bike to explain his facial lacerations. And who could forget the pretzel choking incident? The more they said the worse the perception became. It probably won’t be long, in this down economy when people are desperate for jobs and to avoid home foreclosure, before we start getting books from “insiders” who start ratting out what was really happening behind the scenes.

...Which leads us into the popular culture’s term for malapropisms: Bushisms! Here are a few of the all time favorites uttered by our former President:

Oftentimes, we live in a processed world, you know, people focus on the process and not results.

The law I sign today directs new funds... to the task of collecting vital intelligence... on weapons of mass production.

We are making steadfast progress.

Natural gas is hemispheric... because it is a product that we can find in our neighborhoods.

I am mindful not only of preserving executive powers for myself, but for predecessors as well.

We need an energy bill that encourages consumption.

It will take time to restore chaos and order.

They have miscalculated me as a leader.



Some typographer having fun: I Shot the Serif ---- sheriff

A quick bit of history trivia for you on the origin of the word malapropism… OK, all you show-offs quit waving your hands because you already know the answer. Malapropism came into our language a few centuries ago from the pen of writer Richard Sheridan. His character, Mrs. Malaprop, was known for these speech antics in his 1775 play named The Rivals.

Here are some of her fun malapropisms and the correct word follows. If want to study how to write malapropisms this is a great example of how to write them:

"...promise to forget this fellow - to illiterate him, I say, quite from your memory." -------------- obliterate

"O, he will dissolve my mystery!" ------- resolve

"He is the very pine-apple of politeness!" ------- pinnacle

"I have since laid Sir Anthony's preposition before her;" ------- proposition

"Oh! it gives me the hydrostatics to such a degree." -------- hysterics

"I hope you will represent her to the captain as an object not altogether illegible." ------- eligible

"...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

"I am sorry to say, Sir Anthony, that my affluence over my niece is very small." ------- influence

"Why, murder's the matter! slaughter's the matter! killing's the matter! - but he can tell you the perpendiculars." ------- particulars

"Nay, no delusions to the past - Lydia is convinced;" ------- allusions

"...behold, this very day, I have interceded another letter from the fellow;" ------- intercepted

"I thought she had persisted from corresponding with him;" ------- desisted

"His physiognomy so grammatical!" ------- phraseology

"I am sure I have done everything in my power since I exploded the affair;" ------- exposed

"I am sorry to say, she seems resolved to decline every particle that I enjoin her." ------- article

"...if ever you betray what you are entrusted with... you forfeit my malevolence for ever..." ------- benevolence

"Your being Sir Anthony's son, captain, would itself be a sufficient accommodation;" ------- recommendation

"Sure, if I reprehend any thing in this world it is the use of my oracular tongue, and a nice derangement of epitaphs!" -------- reprehend/apprehend, oracular/vernacular, derangement/arrangement, epitaphs/epithets

President Bush is not alone as he has plenty of company. Other famous people like Yogi Berra and Murray Walker also committed speech heresy. In Britain, their term for a malapropism is a Colemanball. It’s derived from BBC sports commentator David Coleman who is also prone to speech slips so the Private Eye Magazine coined the term that seems to have stuck.

Here are some more funny malapropisms and the correct word follows (English is often a confusing language even for native speakers):

He had to use a fire distinguisher. ------ extinguisher

Dad says the monster is just a pigment of my imagination. ------- figment

Isn't that an expensive pendulum round that man's neck? -------- pendant

Good punctuation means not to be late. -------- punctuality

He's a wolf in cheap clothing. ------ sheep

Michelangelo painted the Sixteenth Chapel. -------- Cistine

My sister has extra-century perception. ------- extrasensory

"Don't" is a contraption. ------- contraction



In case you want to write malapropism dialogue just take a look at real life and former President George Bush in action at his Malapropism Best:



In case the video does not display here's the link where you can get a larger versus smaller player, go here.





*** Fun and intriguing informative science articles written in my usual cheeky voice:

Check Out Cosmic Generator Producing Energy at Rate of 100K Suns

Slamming Low-Ride Satellite Maps Earths Magnetic Field

*** Thanks for visiting! And if you are a blogger make sure to copy these fun free Christmas clip arts to use on your blog!

Round and Round the Obvious: Republican Liars, CIA, the Speaker

From Denny: OK, this is rich and I just have to comment since I grew up in the CIA. What the Republicans are doing is unacceptable. What are they doing? Lying, lying and lying some more in the way of misdirection away from the guilty Party: them.

What I find almost as annoying are the media folks who can't seem to remember what they reported for eight years under the Bush administration. It's like they have a collective Who Me? amnesia.

Is the Speaker telling the truth? Yes. How do I know? I watched the news like everyone else during the Bush years and it was clear she and all other Democrats were pushed out of the small loop of information. Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rice and Gingrich were the main players, the true holders of power and dominance, policy and decision makers. When the CIA reported what they didn't want to hear, like the bald-faced truth, they demanded they rewrite their reports.

Remember the Valerie Plaume incident? They outted her (which is treason by the way even when they do it) because she came back with nuke info they didn't want to hear and she and her husband constantly contradicted Cheney and Bush's public lies with the evidence. By outting her they lost years of experience and destroyed a tough intelligence network to build.

Only fools would destroy an information-gathering network about the status of rogue nukes in the world and still believe they are patriots protecting the country. Protect us from people voting in these destructive fools who would not know a good decision if it jumped up in their faces and begged them to take it home and sleep with it for free.

How else do I know? I know the culture and the historical beginnings of the CIA. The CIA was originally created as "The President's Men" much like the Jesuits were created as "The Pope's Men." The CIA have always been the loyalists to whichever President is sitting in office, any party. They do what other agencies and public words cannot - whatever needs to be done, legal or illegal.

They basically can enable someone who is corrupted by absolute power and that's exactly what happened in the case of the Bush-Cheney years. After all, Bush and Cheney kept firing all the knowledgeable, competent and people of good character in the CIA, the Pentagon, and everywhere they had reach until they finally found enough weak and greedy people to carry out their bidding.

The short version is that Bush ordered them to lie and present false information. He ordered the CIA to withhold information from the Democratic members of Congress AND any moderate Republicans who just might share that info with Democrat friends across the aisle.

This fiasco belongs to the Republican Party and their minions (lobbyists) and enablers (voters). The press needs to grow a pair and quit forcing us to listen to the whiners who couldn't tell the truth if they tried. Maybe it's time to go to a one-party system as the Republicans have proven themselves useless to this country in our time of great need. They are too busy planning their next grab for power. The CIA has never truly been the issue today or in the past. They were just the reaction to the action set by Presidents.

Without the political party to direct and task them the CIA has no mission other than to gather information worldwide. What IS the issue are two events: the ruling political party who sets the policies and toxic politics into motion and the voters who enable that direction.



CIA Republicans Democrats Speaker Pelosi Gingrich politics Congress lobbyists voters Rove Bush Cheney information-gathering United States