Malapropisms & More: An Introduction

Like many people, I collect words. Malapropisms, mixed metaphors, Freudian slips and spoonerisms are the mainstay of my collection, but there’s much more.

People who read more than they listen, like my first ex-husband, are a great source of creative pronunciation and verbal hybrids. He once went on about his friend who’d had her driver’s license confisticated.

The trouble with my favorite garden-variety mispronunciations is that they’re dangerous. If I like the ring of something, I adopt it. That’s fine when I’m with the right people. But please — if I’m trying to impress someone, don’t let me do like another ex-husband: with a grand sweep of his hand he said, “I’m going to get the shirt, the pants … the whole gamoo.”

I also love those spontaneous sparks of insight that emerge in adage form. As Mom once said, “You know, dear: the thing about truisms is that they’re … well … true.”

This would be the very same mother who, in a moment of revelation, declared, “You realize that even chickens have pecking orders!”

All this by way of introduction: Now and then I’ll post some of my favorite quotations that I (and friends) have gathered from hither and yon.

I asked a certain person of my acquaintance, “Was the book non-fiction?” He replied irritably:

NO! It’s a true story!

These, too, are non-fiction — the true kind — overheard in Real Life.