Favorite Malapropisms

[jgraz]

One of my ex-girlfriends is an awfully bright woman, but she has this funny habit of butchering any catchphrase she attempts to repeat -- often with hilarious results. Here are a few of my favorites:

"Hindsight is 50/50"

"That's the sheep calling the kettle black"

and

"Half of one, six dozen of another"


I use that last one all the time, whenever two choices seem initially equivalent but end up with wildly divergent outcomes.


Anyone care to add to the list?

[mysuzuki2]

1. I can't phantom the point of this thread

[arbusto_baboso]

2. My grandmother once referred to turkey noodle soup as......

Turtle nooky soup.

We still rib her for that one.

[jgraz]

3. Technically, that's a spoonerism

But it's still cute ;)

[arbusto_baboso]

4. Aren't spoonerisms a subset of malapropisms?

I thought spoonerisms were just a specific KIND of malaprop.

In any case...

Do you remember an old Dabney Colman series called Slap Maxwell? The character of the editor had wonderful malapropisms. I'm sure you can find clips of that old show on youtube or hulu.

[jgraz]

18. Nope. Spoonerism is for letters, Malapropism applies to words.

But thanks for the pointer to Slap Maxwell. I'll check it out.

[Curtland1015]

30. But spoonerisms is for eating souperisms. NT

[Coventina]

5. A friend of mine and I had a heated argument once over "participle board"

I kept insisting it was really "particle board", but he thought otherwise.

That one still makes me smile.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

6. Peance Freance.

Courtesy of 43.

[kath]

21. Oh, jeebus, I had forgotten about "peance freance"! What the heck was he *trying* to say? -

I've forgotten.

[JitterbugPerfume]

7. cadillac converter

that one drives me nuts

[MineralMan]

23. I always call it a

"Cadillac convertible." Call me crazy.

[Brother Buzz]

8. Let's get down to brass facts

[reflection]

9. I once had a boss that said, in the space of one day:

"you're pulling the wool over my legs", and

"that son-of-a-b**** thinks he's the cake of the walk"

The last one still makes me laugh. :D

[Common Sense Party]

10. I never understood what "cock of the walk" was supposed to mean.

Cake of the walk means about the same to me.

[Bertha Venation]

15. refers to chickens - I think that

the "cock o' the walk" is like the top dog, alpha male, that kind of thing, among all the other roosters

[reflection]

42. Yep. That's exactly what it refers to. n/t

[gratuitous]

11. Downstate politician

He promised to turn around the county 360°!

[NJmaverick]

12. "fool me once shame on you....errr... can't get fooled again"

[Mr. Ected]

13. "Go the extra nine yards"

I never got the meaning of 'going the whole nine yards' in the first place, though.

[jgraz]

16. "nine yards" refers to the traditional length of a bolt of fabric

If you bought the entire bolt, you got "the whole nine yards".

[Mr. Ected]

19. You are erudite and helpful, rgraz

I now realize that a bunch of fabric is called a "bolt".

Never knew that...or the other thing either.

:hi:

[NJmaverick]

24. I was under the understanding that this referred to WW 2 fighters

most were equipped with M2 .50 caliber machine guns. These were belt fed with 3 foot belts that could be attached up to 27 feet. So if a fighter pilot had expended all his ammo he had given it the "whole nine yards".

[pokerfan]

25. Leave it to the Straight Dope guy

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/504/whats-the-origin-of-the-whole-nine-yards

[jgraz]

27. Wow, after seeing all those possible explanations

I can't believe the fabric story is the only one I've ever heard. None of them seems more plausible than the rest.

[abq e streeter]

14. Maybe not technically one, but "I resent the insinuendos" from the late mayor Daley

was a classic.

[jgraz]

17. I had forgotten about that one.

"insinuendos" :rofl:

[bif]

20. She was raped over the coals

[hippywife]

22. An old co-worker of mine

always had "too much on her gambit." Not gamut, mind you, so she not only mixed her metaphor, she didn't even do THAT correctly. LOL

The other is people who say ideal instead of idea or calvary instead of cavalry. I've even heard "journalists" (a.k.a. slick talking heads) do that last one.

[suninvited]

26. casting asparagus

I learned that one here

on edit: ooops, meant to reply to the OP.

[Zavulon]

28. I once had a boss who couldn't get these things right, either. You won't believe this:

Once, when writing a performance review of one of my female co-workers, he wrote, and I quote, "Tracy turns tricks of all trades."

I shit you not.

[hippywife]

31. ...

:spray:

I hope that didn't go on her permanent record. :rofl:

[Zavulon]

32. It was noticed and thrown back to him.

To Tracy's credit, she knew of his inability to handle simple idioms and laughed at it. He obviously meant well, but...WOW. Most of the females in my office encouraged her to play the victim card and sue.

[pokerfan]

29. statue of limitations

[GreenPartyVoter]

33. I am hard of hearing and had childhood friends who often yelled, "Are you death?!" at me. LOL

[rurallib]

34. Is Yogi Berra a subset here? He had some awesome quotes

When asked why he didn't like playing left field he said "It gets late early out there."
On a popular restaurant he noted "it's so busy nobody goes there any more"

holy smokes, that's all I can remember.

[jgraz]

36. Here y'go

http://rinkworks.com/said/yogiberra.shtml

The man was a genius :rofl:

[dixiegrrrrl]

35. 5 y/o neighbor's child watching birds with me

excitedly told his daddy later that afternoon that one of the birds we saw was
" a red pecker woodenhead".

Daddy is a minister.

[jobycom]

37. Accounting humor: One of my bosses refers to the "physical year"

instead of "fiscal" obviously. Which basically means the opposite of what he's trying to say.

[Still Blue in PDX]

39. I heard a guy on Randi Rhodes' show say that today.

Funnily enough, he was talking about the sad state of schools in SC.

[Glorfindel]

38. Saying "I could care less" when you mean "I couldn't care less"

and, as my little cousin used to say, "mighty pines from little acorns grow."

[jgraz]

40. If you account for sarcasm, that's grammatically correct

[noamnety]

41. My daughter's teacher

yelled at the students one day for conjugating in the hallway.

[trof]

43. 'He's got something up his arm.'

My beloved mother-in-law.
And from my grandson who was 4 at the time: "YOU WANT A PIECE OF MEAT!?"