Malapropism

by Sid

Today brought back lots of memories after I talked to all my #EECS_4_LYFE “bois” from college for more than three hours! I really miss spending time with close friends and I hope this stay at home order is lifted soon.

Table of contents:

Initial inference

Okay, you got me! I’ve come across this word and I may be cheating here a bit… Since this word ends in “ism” it is most definitely a noun. Say we break this word down into its individual pieces, we get: mal-a-prop-ism. The first part is similar to a Spanish word that I learned, “mal,” meaning “bad.” Taking the “prop” part we can say it maybe means the “use of,” like a “prop.” Based on these individual meanings, I think it means:

Using a word or phrase in a wrong way in some context.

Definition and Pronunciation

noun | MAL-uh-prah-piz-um

  1. the usually unintentionally humorous misuse or distortion of a word or phrase; especially : the use of a word sounding somewhat like the one intended but ludicrously wrong in the context

Example usage

I would use the word in a sentence as follows:

Today Joe’s speech had lots of malapropism, like when he said “Steven has great punctuation” when he meant to say “punctuality.”

Sid

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