Wednesday 21 July 2010

The malapropisms of refudiation

Following SarahPalin’s now (in)famous malapropism (or was it a corrigendum) we’d like to air a few more famous examples, starting with some from Mrs Malaprop herself:

  • "He is the very pineapple of politeness!" – Mrs Malaprop
  • "...promise to forget this fellow - to illiterate him, I say, quite from your memory."– Mrs Malaprop
  • "I hope you will represent her to the captain as an object not altogether illegible."– Mrs Malaprop
  • "Your ambition - is that right - is to abseil across the English channel?" - Cilla Black
  • "This is unparalyzed in the state's history." - Gib Lewis, Texas Speaker of the House
  • "He's going up and down like a metronome." - Ron Pickering
  • "We cannot let terrorists and rogue nations hold this nation hostile or hold our allies hostile." - George W. Bush
  • "I am mindful not only of preserving executive powers for myself, but for predecessors as well."- George W. Bush
  • "He was a man of great statue." - Thomas Menino, Boston mayor
  • "Republicans understand the importance of bondage between a mother and child." - Dan Quayle, Vice President
  • "Well, that was a cliff-dweller." - Wes Westrum, about a close baseball game
  • This series has been swings and pendulums all the way through." - Trevor Bailey, cricket commentator
  • “Don’t upset the apple tart.” - Irish Taoiseach (PM) Bertie Ahern
  • “We shall reach greater and greater platitudes of achievement.” – Toronto mayor Allan Lamport
  • This is the crutch of the problem.” – Toronto mayor Allan Lamport
  • “The chief is inclined to believe that a crossed wife might be the cause of the fire.” - Leo Rosten
  • “A rolling stone gathers no moths.”
  • “Arabs wear turbines on their heads.”
  • “The Bible is full of interesting caricatures.”
  • “He's a wolf in cheap clothing.”

The Uncyclopaedia swears that this was “The Contraception of Malapropism”:

_Quote The very first intense of malapropism was recorded in the filming of the 'The Munich Putsch' in 1923. What started as a civil concussion as to who would play the leading role of Adolf Hitler between Adolf von Thadden and William Pierce, soon escalatored into a viscous, savage argument. Sensing the argument would soon turn to cufflinks, Pierce took initiation and struck Von Thadden's forehead with a nearby fire distinguisher…”

Finally, it was reported in New Scientist magazine (June 18 2005) that an office worker once described a colleague as "a vast suppository of information". (i.e., repository) The worker then apologised for his "Miss-Marple-ism." (i.e. malapropism).  New Scientist reported it as possibly the first time malapropism has been turned into a malapropism.



1 comment:

Jean Lindsay said...

Delightful post. Palin is neither in the malapropism tradition or in any other except making up words. It may be a function of her nervousness at being in the public eye overly much these days. Now George Bush, he was a malaprop man!