Les Dawson was an accomplished musician but would deliberately play the wrong notes in his performances. This hilarious piece of dialogue may well have been inspired by Dawson’s signature comedic device – his piano playing. In a much-loved episode of his show, he had Cissie refer to “one of those paranoid cameras”. Dawson had created an alter ego called Cissie who was prone to making silly comments. He took advantage of the popularity of Polaroid’s instant cameras which were all the rage at the time. In the late 1970s, English comedian Les Dawson came up with a classic malapropism. Here are some of Mrs Malaprop’s most celebrated utterances: “she’s as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of Nile” “Sure, if I reprehend anything in this world it is the use of my oracular tongue, and a nice derangement of epitaphs !” Les Dawson This can be literally translated as poorly placed. Malapropos is in turn derived from the French phrase mal à propos. Sheridan chose the name Mrs Malaprop advisedly as it is undoubtedly a reference to the word malapropos which means inappropriately. Despite Shakespeare having created Dogberry long before Sheridan introduced Mrs Malaprop to the world, it is the term malapropism which has endured. Here’s one of his best: “Our watch, my lord, have indeed comprehended two auspicious persons, and we would have them this morning examined before your worship.” Dogberry remains an alternative term for malapropism but one that is rarely used these days. In his 1598 play, Much Ado About Nothing, Dogberry uttered many malapropisms, and these helped to create a memorable character. It was none other than William Shakespeare who first used malapropisms as comedic devices. But unlike missing apostrophes and dangling modifiers, malapropisms can be used deliberately for comedic effect. But we thought that malapropisms can be so amusing that we should showcase the finest examples of these linguistic slip-ups! Most grammatical errors, including malapropisms, are simply mistakes. Indeed, we have mentioned malapropisms before. In previous articles, we have highlighted the most common mistakes that occur in spoken and written English. The term is derived from the character Mrs Malaprop who featured in Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s 1775 play The Rivals. Malapropisms: How people sometimes choose the wrong birdsĪ malapropism is the incorrect and often humorous use of a word instead of another word that sounds similar.
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