Sunday 10 July 2022: Malapropisms, mondegreens and eggcorns

 

Sunday 10 July 2022

Malapropisms, mondegreens and eggcorns

When I was a child, my father, brother and I enjoyed playing punning word games. These witty games involved a grasp of, and sharp understanding regarding, what words sounded similar to other words, might be confused for other words, or had similar but subtly different meanings, which could be played on. Shakespeare uses word play of a similar kind to marvellous, sparkling effect in exchanges between Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing. It is in the same play that Constable Dogberry frequently uses the wrong terms (malapropisms).

Below are some malapropisms/mondegreens/eggcorns that I have heard or otherwise encountered over the years.

1.      Several former counselling clients have confused the words ‘gamut’ and ‘gambit’. The word ‘gamut’ is less well known, and so the better-known word ‘gambit’, from the board game chess, is substituted.

2.      When referring to things which are psychologically or emotionally complex or difficult, several former counselling clients, as well as people I have heard talking on the radio, incorrectly use the term ‘mind field’ rather than the figurative use of the word ‘minefield’.

3.      It is a commonplace to hear people on the radio use the word ‘tenants’ (a common, everyday word regarding the status of people holding a tenancy) when what they are talking about are ‘tenets’ (a word meaning the principles of a belief, that is less well known).

4.      My mother always used to say ‘pacifically’ when she meant ‘specifically’.

5.      To be ‘on tender hooks” should actually read to be ‘on tenterhooks’. A tenter is the frame on which cloth is stretched when it is being made. The tenterhooks are the hooks or bent nails that hold the cloth. The idiom means to be held in suspense.

6.      ‘To all intensive purposes’, should read ‘to all intents and purposes’. An intent is the same as an intention or purpose’, whereas ‘intensive’ means having a high degree of intensity.

7.      In the 2010 movie The Tourist, the character Alexander Pearce/Frank Tupelo, played by Johnny Depp, says to Elise Clifton-Ward, played by Angelina Jolie: “You’re ravenous”. The exchange continues: “Do you mean ‘ravishing’?” “I do.” “You’re ravenous.” “I am.”

8.      A common American phrase is “I could care less” regarding circumstances in which what is plainly meant is “I could not care less.” I have never heard someone say it to me, and if they did, I would be tempted to ask them what it would be like for them to care less about the issue. I am mildly appalled that use of the phrase “I could care less”, intended to mean its precise opposite, has achieved widespread acceptance in the United States. I assume that this daft situation has come about because so many people in the United States have a heritage in other than the Anglophone world.

9. I have both heard (especially on the radio) and read people using the term 'simplistic' when what they mean is 'simple'. The word 'simplistic' points to an explanation having been reduced to a level of simplicity (reduction in precision) resulting in the explanation being inaccurate (that is, incorrect).

There are more common malapropisms, although I cannot recall them at the moment. I intend to add them to this document as they occur to me.