"*sigh* You mean 'detestable'."
Old Biff: [dope slap] It's leave, you idiot! "Make like a tree, and leave!" You sound like a damn fool when you say it wrong!
The distinguishing characteristic of the Malaproper is that they constantly replace words with similar-sounding but wrong ones. A common form of this is for the Malaproper to mangle proverbs, idioms, and other figures of speech. They may use overly complicated synonyms that make them sound wrong; e.g., "The cat's out of the bag" becomes "The feline has been released from the sack!" Alternatively, they may use words that sound almost right — "Let's get this shoe on the toad!" for "Let's get this show on the road!" They may also nonsensically combine figures of speech ("You can't cross the same river without breaking a few eggs"). (See Mixed Metaphor.) This character will sometimes be corrected, not that this does any good.
The term "malaproper" comes from "malapropism", a reference to Mrs. Malaprop, a character from the 1775 play The Rivals by Richard Brinsley Sheridan whose name, in turn, is derived from malapropos, an adjective or adverb meaning "inappropriate" or "inappropriately". Mrs. Malaprop's name and character were based on the idea of making malapropos statements.
(Although the trope can be found in earlier works — for instance, it is also exemplified by Sergeant Dogberry in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing.)
Injuries to certain parts of the brain can produce aphasia,
loss of speech or speech impediment. Damage to Broca's Area can cause a complete inability to form words at all, while damage to Wernicke's Area can produce complete loss of comprehensible speech (the words come out okay but don't mean anything in relation to each other). This is one cause of malapropism. That and liquor. Another very rare condition — proxyglossoriasis — (according to the Duckman television show) has the sufferer replace the intended word with a nearby word in the dictionary. The effect is often hysterical.
Often used by those speaking Poirot Speak. Can also be used to indicate one who is Raised by Wolves, an Alien Speaking English, or else a Cloudcuckoolander, whose sense of reality isn't affected (or effected, as the case may be) by actual reality. May be used to set up an Expospeak Gag.
Compare and contrast with Delusions of Eloquence, Blunt Metaphors Trauma, Acronyms Are Easy as Aybeecee, Freudian Slip, [Popular Saying], But..., and My Hovercraft Is Full of Eels. Compare and contrast also with the Spoonerism, where the first letter or syllable is transposed for comedy effect. If the speaker uses the apparently correct words instead but gets hopelessly lost in their train of thought, that's Metaphorgotten. If using the wrong word is the result of mishearing the correct word, that's a Mondegreen Gag. Rouge Angles of Satin is this trope in written form.
See here for a self-demonstrating version of this page.
Example subpages:
Other examples:
- A 1980s radio spot
for Detroit-area retailer Highland Appliance featured an interview with a "professional doubletalker" who unleashed a veritable Hurricane Of Malaprops.
- Comedian Norm Crosby was known for malapropisms. In a Miller Lite beer commercial featuring Oakland A's pitcher Catfish Hunter at a bar throwing darts, Norm first calls him Catfood Hunter. Then after Catfish hits dead center, Norm quips, "Hey! Bull's ear, Catnip!"
- In this Jack in the Box ad
, the son of company mascot Jack is giving a presentation at his elementary school, talking about how his dad created one of the restaurant chain's new burgers, and then saying that he wanted to be a vegetarian and that vegetarians were "the best", causing the boy's parents to sit in embarrassment... until he told the audience that they took the family dog to the "vegetarian".
- Yamagata in the AKIRA manga can't seem to contain his "indigestion" note and finds no problem "discussing" it loudly.
- Azumanga Daioh: In addition to her Kansai accent, Ayumu "Osaka" Kasuga has a tendency toward amusing mispronunciation and vocabulary confusion, especially of any non-Japanese words.
- At one point in Ah! My Goddess, Skuld is attempting to purchase a mannequin from a store. She offers all the money she has, and says that if it's not enough she'll sell her body. Cue shocked silence from all involved (Skuld appears to be a little girl, after all) until her older sister Belldandy informs her that the proper saying is "I'll work it off."
- Dan from Basquash!! has an amazing tendency to mispronounce the names of people and places. He easily crosses into Accidental Misnaming territory with several characters because of this.
- Tsukasa Domyoji in all versions of Boys Over Flowers. In the manga, other characters have even broken the fourth wall to point out his inability to speak certain simple words in Kanji (as represented in his speech bubble).
- The titular character from Crayon Shin-chan does this a lot. Such as saying "Welcome home" when he comes home and "I'm leaving" when someone else comes back. In the gag dub, when Georgie asks Shin if his mother goes to any drunken sex parties he mixes it up by replying that he doesn't know if she goes to any drunken insect parties.
- Futari wa Pretty Cure: Saki from Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash★Star. A Running Gag is her mispronouncing Shitaare's name every. single. time. Which never fails to piss her off.
- Non-spoken example: Tomokane from GA: Geijutsuka Art Design Class has a hard time reading and writing kanji. So when the art stream curriculum included typography...
- Bankotsu from Inuyasha is a rare villainous example. One of his first scenes has him messing up the kanji he's supposed to write in a letter to an old enemy several times, and he ultimately has to ask The Evil Genius from his group for help.
- My-HiME:
- Haruka Suzushiro often had to be corrected by Yukino Kikukawa. In My-Otome, Yukino Chrysant, now a president of a republic, carried a megaphone for the sole purpose of correcting the malapropisms of her Otome, Haruka Armitage.
- Sara Gallagher, first of the Five Columns, also gets in on this from time to time.
Haruka: All right, it's show time! We'll destroy this median!
Yukino: It's "meteoroid—" [interrupted by Sara]
Sara: It's "meteroid", Haruka-onee-sama. You're the mission leader, so please act like one.
- The Medicine Seller from Mononoke does a malapropism in the 6th episode by mixing up two different Japanese idioms. Justified in that it's more than a bit apparent he's Not Quite Human.
- Monster Musume: When the police and Ms. Smith are looking for her to have her returned to her host family or deported, Papi tries to explain her situation to Kimihito. Unfortunately, instead of saying "deported," she says "deflowered" (according to the fan manga translation), "aborted" (according to the official manga translation), or "incest" (according to the anime translation).
- Eve from NEEDLESS does this a LOT - though in her case she not only mangles speech, but renames characters on a whim, often with arguments from the victim. Hilarity ensues. She does this so often that other characters eventually start using the alternate names, the victim eventually just accepts it as a nickname.
- One Piece:
- Luffy tends to do this with some frequency. Though this is differently translated between the manga and anime: for example when Kaya gives them the Going Merry, Luffy says "Wow, you're sure adding injury to insult, Miss Kaya!" in the manga and in the anime says "It leaves nothing to be tired." Zoro immediately corrects him ("[Try adding icing to the cake]/[That's nothing to be desired] moron.").
- Another example his when Luffy sees Bellemere's grave and says "condolences" incorrectly several times before the mayor helps him out. This situation was a little different in that Luffy can tell that he is saying the wrong word to some degree.
- He also remarks, in one episode of the anime, "That's my polisuu!" Sanji then replies "What the heck is a polisuu? You mean policy (same word in Japanese as it is in English), don't you?"
- Franky tends to mishear any similar enough word as Hentai/Pervert, and ask if the speaker is talking to him.
- Some of Franky's underlings walk around Water 7, announcing that they've captured Usoppnote while demanding that Luffy show himself if he doesn't want Usopp to come to harm. Unfortunately, one Franky Family member gets the words wrong("If you don't want us to think you like emotion" as opposed to "If you don't want us to sink him in the ocean."), resulting in the threat coming off as more comedic than intimidating.
- A Running Gag from the second movie, has Pin Joker constantly misquoting idioms only to be corrected.
- Some of Shampoo's speech from Ranma ½ one notable example "Why you have to be such a sexy pig?!" (she meant sexist pig).
- Angol Moa from Sgt. Frog tends to punctuate her sentences with "Teyuuka", which is usually "translated" as "It's like…" or "You could say...", followed by a Japanese idiom that's almost, but not quite, appropriate to the situation.
- Minako Aino from Sailor Moon already was this in the original Codename: Sailor V manga, where she cuts a Monster of the Week in two… but calls said punishment seppuku (Artemis is not amused). This trait is taken to Running Gag levels in the first anime, with either Ami or Artemis always correcting her.
Minako: You know what they say, "Life is short, love's a battle." (Beat; everyone stares at Minako dumbfoundedly; Usagi drops her bookbag) Huh? Did I get that wrong?
Artemis: The correct saying is, "Life is short, so love a little."
Minako: I guess that's another way to say it... - Shino from Seitokai Yakuindomo will occasionally blurt out really obscene things that sound similar to more innocuous phrases, such as saying kinbaku (rope bondage) when she's talking about the Kinkaku temple. Given her personality, it's difficult to tell if she does it on purpose.
- Oguri Cap from Umamusume: Cinderella Gray sometimes gets idioms or names mixed up, such as calling her trainer Kitahara a "broken recording" instead of a "broken record" or thinking that Dicta Striker is calling her a "Mayo Lover" instead of a "Miler".
- Yotsuba from Yotsuba&! mangles words and creates Portmanteau words like "Yotsubox" for "Yotsuba's box" — just as you'd expect from a five-year-old.
- In Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's, Yusei adjusts Rua and Ruka's adult-sized duel disks to fit their tiny arms. Amazed, Rua thanks him for "cutmonsizing" their duel disks, then Ruka says the right word is "customizing".
- In a sketch on the Smothers Brothers album Mom Always Liked You Best! Tommy Smothers commented on how they went to a friend's wedding and then attended the "conception" afterwards. When Dick countered this with "He means reception, folks," Tommy sheepishly replied "I must've been in the wrong room." In the intro to the song "Daniel Boone"note , Dickie says Daniel Boone was a trader and a trapper, to which Tommy responds, "Yeah, Daniel Boone was a trailer and a tractor!"
- From Another Monty Python Record:
And now, a massage from the Swedish prime minister. (Sound of a masseuse kneading a patron's back)
- Peter Kay has mentioned his nan is this in a stand-up routine.
"Have you seen that new 3D film, Abbatoir?
- Archie Babies: Due to their young ages, the babies are prone to mispronouncing certain words.
- In "Miss Blossum is Miss-ing!" Baby Archie mispronounces "substitute" as "stubby-toot".
- In "Rainy Day Play", Baby Moose mispronounces "camoflauge" as "camelfrogs", thinking they're camels with long tongues.
- In "The Hunt For Treasure X", the babies mispronounce "sculpture" as "scoopture".
- Molly Hayes from Runaways sometimes mixes up her words.
- The Beast is prone to this in X-Men Noir because he tries to sound smart but reaches farther than his vocabulary can vouch for. He's a very bright kid, though.
- Lucullan, Emperor Golgoth's minister of War demonstrates this in Mark Waid's Empire. He uses big words to make himself sound smarter, but gets them wrong half the time (ironically, he is a tactical genius). Although on one notable occasion, it is not clear whether he accidentally uses the right word, or decides to amuse himself by telling the truth, knowing they'll just assume he made a mistake. This will make sense in context, but let's just say he didn't mean "Martinets". In one issue, a fellow warrior notes you can always tell when Lucullan is truly angry as "it's the one time he actually talks sense."
- Melody in Josie and the Pussycats does this frequently. To give some idea, just one page in the comic saw her say, "A fool and his mother are soon parted" and "You can't burn your bridges and have them, too". In one comics story, her response to Alexandra calling her an eternal optimist was, "I can't be an internal octopus! I don't even know how to make glasses!"
- Little Witches: Magic in Concord: Amy March has this trait and is often unable to use words properly. She says that dried apples aren't as "detectable" as fresh ones, and uses "tech-nickly" instead of technically and "ben'fishery" instead of beneficiary. When she says she needs to be certain of her sphere of "flatulence" (instead of "influence"), Beth snickers and Jo facepalms.
- There is an eight-part comic in Werner – Oder was? about a guy named Günter who is sent to the pharmacy by his mother to get a pack of Spironolactonil-ratiopharm for his father. Not only can't he get the name right — it ends up as things like "Spironalin Resopal", "Spironolocktan Ratiniloplan" or "Spiranol-Naploram" —, but it drives him insane enough to end up in a hospital. When he is ordered to be treated with Spironolactonil-ratiopharm himself, he escapes in sheer panic.
- Tintin: Thompson and Thomson mix up their words at times. To be precise, at times they're wordy and mixed-up.
- Pomru Purrwakkawakka, the Tavitan copilot of the titular humongous Mecha in Dynamo Joe, likes to show off his command of the language by using English idioms and exclamations, but rarely gets them right; for example, "Let's blow this pup tent!"
- The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye:
Spinister: A transmat suite!
Misfire: Sweet!
Spinister: That's what I said.
- Ernest from the comic strip Frank and Ernest is a master malaproper. Occasionally, he even appears as superhero Malaprop Man ("It's absurd! It's inane! It's Malaprop Man!").
- Ed Crankshaft, eponymous grumpy old man of Crankshaft tends to be of the "mixing metaphors" type, but occasionally strays into more improper malaprops, such as using "philanderer" for "philatelist".
- Opus of Bloom County is very fond of this.
"Pear pimples for hairy fishnuts!" (How he hears "Prayer temples for Hare Krishnas.")
"Sometimes you have to take the bull by the horns of a dilemma."- In one strip, the supporting cast all gasp in horror as he starts a malapropism with "you can lead a yak to water," and just brace themselves for what's to come. Opus realizes it, thinks hard... and concludes with "but you can't teach an old dog to make a silk purse out of a pig in a poke," which makes them scream.
- Peanuts: Sally often commits malapropisms in her school reports (such as the "Bronchitis", a dinosaur which became extinct from coughing too much, and "Santa Claus and his Rain Gear" instead of "reindeer").
- 50% of the humor of The Family Circus is this.
- FoxTrot: Jason, of all people, is surprisingly prone to these.
- He and his friend Marcus, on March 15th
◊, dressed up as giant eyeballs while chanting "Beware the Eyes of March!" in an attempt to scare Paige.
Paige: It's "Ides," you geeks. "Beware the Ides of March." Sheesh. Get a clue. - Another time
◊, he and Marcus were dressed for Halloween as "country pumpkins", with the pumpkins' holes shaped like Italy and Lithuania.
Paige: The word is "bumpkins." And shouldn't you have Southern accents, then? - In another strip
◊, Jason tried to get his pet iguana Quincy to kiss the "Barney Stone" so he'd learn to speak.
Peter: It's Blarney Stone, you moron.
- He and his friend Marcus, on March 15th
General
- One of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic's many Ensemble Darkhorses, Derpy Hooves, is portrayed in Fanon as falling into malapropisms, especially when stressed or anxious.
Specific
- Adventures of a Line Hopper: Buffy's canonical difficulty to pronounce unusual words, especially demon names, is present; since this is a crossover fic series with Doctor Who, she gets to butcher alien names as well. Her Fan-Created Offspring Seo also likes to butcher alien names, although in Reunion she admits that she is doing it intentionally to emulate her mother.
Buffy: 'Tripartite System'? Wasn't that outlawed in South Africa or something?
Ianto: That's… apartheid. And very different. - In the Alternate Tail Series, while Levy rambles of how Gajeel's inability to regain magic from his own iron is in accords to the Laws of Thermodynamics, Gajeel states he stopped listening after she said "Thermos-Dynamite."
- The Bolt Chronicles: Because of their malfunctioning translator collars bought at a bargain-basement store, the aliens in "The Spaceship" misspeak a lot when they talk to Rhino.
Gidney: [peevishly] Budget cuts! Budget cuts! That's all our Beerless Leader says to us anymore.
Cloyd: [whispering] Not in front of the G-E-N-Y-U-S. We'll make a terrible first compression on our guest of honor! - A Boy, a Girl and a Dog: The Leithian Script: As Beren and Finrod are talking about the latter possibly running into hostile people while wandering around the Halls of Mandos, Beren subtly hints that Finrod's estranged fiancee has just arrived.
Beren: "Um, Sir — that wasn't a rhetorical question."
[long pause]
Finrod: [desperate bravado] "I think the word you want is "hypothetical.""
Beren: "No, I think the word we want is — "help". - Everyday Craziness in Pontypandy: In "A Merry Pontypandy Christmas", Dilys mistakenly refers to the city of Sendai, Japan as "Sentai".
- Half-Life: Full Life Consequences: "Thanks I could help bro!" Of course, it being a Troll Fic, there's plenty of malapropos gems laying about. Or is lying about?
- My Abominable Monster Classmates Can't Be This Cute!: Weiss frequently mixes up her words, such as using "droll" in place of "drool" and vice versa.
- In Rise of the Minisukas, Zefron's inability to not mix up words constantly drives its partner Azrael up the wall.
Azrael: What I wouldn't give for someone who understands the value of presentation.
Zefron: I UNDERSTAND PRESENTATION. I WILL PRESENTATION MYSELF BEFORE FATHER AFTER I SMASH THE LILIM.
Azrael: That's not….. you know what? Nevermind. Hopefully, the Lilim can appreciate a bit of flair.
Zefron: HOW WOULD YOU BURN THEM ENOUGH FOR THEM TO APPRECIATE FLARE? YOU DO NOT CONTROL FIRE.
Azrael: Not flare, flair!
Zefron: WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?
Azrael: ….. I hate you so much right now. - In The Rod Squad, Dale refers to England Dan and John Ford Coley as England Jim and John Wilkes Booth.
- The third episode of To Belong begins with brothers Jim and Sinbad getting into an argument on whether an insult is "fanny-pants" or "fany-pants". Charming, the one they were insulting, cuts in and tells them the correct term is "fancy-pants".
- In Total Drama Legacy, using similar-sounding words instead of the correct word is a common Running Gag used to show stupidity. The character who does this the most is Wayne (the Fan-Created Offspring of Lindsay and Tyler), but it's also frequently done by Lightning, Sugar, and, yes, Lindsay. Although Total Drama's Lindsay does this mainly with names in the show (typically in a mondegreen style), fanfic writers often flanderize her into a full-fledged malaproper.
- The AFR Universe has made this an Once A Fic gag for Ryuji, who'll use the wrong word for what he's trying to say and be corrected by one of his friends. For example, in "Boys and Queens", Ryuji calls Ren and Makoto about how he appeared in a tabloid article because his picture was taken by a "pop rat".
Ren: "Pop rat"?
Ryuji: You know, those dudes who sneak around and take pictures of people in secret.
Makoto: You mean "Paparazzi". It's Italian.
Ryuji: I dunno what country the guy's from, Makoto! - In the Ma Fille chapter "Sleepover", six-year-old Claire mispronounces "anime" as "amine".
- The Persona 5 fic Nudist Queen
(NSFW) features the scene from the game where Eiko says her opinion of Makoto has "done a complete 360", obviously meaning a 180. The story turns this into a Running Gag when Ren tells her she means a 540, pointing out to Makoto it is technically correct. Eiko is fooled, using 540 in the same context later.
- Nurse Jet: Jet mangles "Bless you" into "Dress you".
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit:
- The head weasel is prone to these.
Smart Ass: Search the place, boys, and leave no stone interned!
Smart Ass: Hey, boss, you want we should disresemble the place? - Roger himself has a memorable one as well when, in the search for Marvin Acme's will, Eddie tells Dolores that she should "check the probate":
Roger: Yeah, check the probate! Why, my Uncle Thumper had a problem with his "probate", and he had to take these big pills and drink lots of water...
Eddie: Not prostate, you idiot! Probate!
- The head weasel is prone to these.
- Waffles in Rango: "It's a puzzle. It's like a big ol' mammogram!"
- In Jack and the Cuckoo-Clock Heart, Jack sometimes mixes up his words.
Jack: After your concert, we'll make the whole oyster our world.
- Doc from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs does this when he gets flustered. This was a specialty of comedian Roy Atwell, who voiced the character for the film, and adopted the trademark after a real-life screw-up on Broadway. This even gets exploited when the dwarfs let Snow White sleep in their bedroom for the night. When Doc assures her that they'll be comfortable, Grumpy interjects "In a pig's eye!" This throws off Doc to the point where he calls the cottage a "pig sty".
- The Lion King (1994) has Pumbaa, who attempts to quote his cleverer friend, Timon: "You gotta put your behind in your past!" Even better, when Pumbaa learns that Simba is the king, he gets down on his knees and says, "I gravel at your feet." Timon corrects him there, too. It's even funnier in the Japanese dub. Pumbaa wants to say something about being Simba's servant, "shimobe." Instead he says he is his "shimobukure," which means "fat face" or "abdominal swelling."
- The title character of Megamind has trouble uttering certain words, such as "shool" instead of "school", "spyider" instead of "spider", and most importantly, "Metrocity" (rhymes with "atrocity") instead of "Metro City," which becomes particularly important at the climax, as it allows Titan to uncover Megamind when posing as Metro Man.
- Migration: For the final leg of the journey, Dax is put in charge, and has Gwen run through the pre-flight checklist. She mispronounces "take-off" as "bake-off".
- In Yellow Submarine when Old Fred pleads to Ringo for help, Ringo says "Be Pacific!"
- A rich Ditz calls her doctor late at night. "Excuse me, I have to 'insult' you, because I'm suffering from 'confections' of the head." The Doctor: "Then I suggest you send your maid to the 'fallacy' and get a bottle of 'rhinoceros' oil."
- A man goes to the doctor and insists he wants to be castrated. The doctor confirms several times that this is what he wants, and the patient is adamant. "I want to be castrated," he tells the doctor. When he wakes up after the procedure, the doctor says to him "I noticed you weren't circumcised." The patient looks at the doctor in horror and says "THAT'S the word!"
- The woman who wants her doctor to give her a physical extermination because she hasn't demonstrated in three months and thinks she may be stagnant.
- The man whose wife was unable to have children:
She is impregnable... I mean, impenetrable... I mean, inconceivable!
- Ringo Starr was famous for this. The song, album and film A Hard Day's Night were named after a phrase Ringo used after a concert. As he said: "It's been a hard day" he suddenly noticed it was dark outside and added "...'s night". Another one of his was "Tomorrow Never Knows", used on Revolver. Paul McCartney also stated in a 1984 interview with Playboy that "Eight Days a Week" off Beatles for Sale was inspired by another of Ringo's malapropisms. He would later recant this claim, and now states that the phrase came from a chauffeur whom he probably just misremembered as Ringo.
- The first line of Procol Harum's "Whiter Shade of Pale", Skip the light fandango is a malapropism of Trip the light fantastic.
- Frank Zappa often uses a rather unusual version of English in his songs, mainly to make the lyrics fit the music better. One particularly egregious example is the chorus to his song "Zomby Woof" from Over-Nite Sensation:
Tellin' ya all the zomby troof!Here I'm is, the Zomby Woof!
- Tenacious D has one rather big example in "Kickapoo". "Then I sliced his ***ing cockles, with a long and shiny blade!"note . It's an in-character mistake - this section of the song is rendered in more of a Stylistic Suck style than the rest of it, and is supposed to be a fictionalized teenage Jack Black's first attempt at songwriting.
- Pharrell Williams, during his verse on Snoop Dogg's "Drop It Like It's Hot", mispronounces "eligible" as "elgible". Wonder if he was trying to fit the rhyme scheme?
- Norwegian singer/songwriter Bertine Zettlitz's "Death in her room" features the line "my baby – warlocks in her hair", apparently thinking warlock means lock of hair.
- Done deliberately in Maria Solheim's "Richard" with the lines:
Years of painted her hair
And colored her face - Played for Laughs by The Adventures of Duane & BrandO in their song based on "Cheetahmen II", which opens with a deadpan narration of the game's opening text, preserving the typo "Dr. Morbis plans to use the Ape-Man to destroy his failed expirement." They later base the rhyme scheme of Dr. Morbis' verse based on this mistake:
Cheetahmen, you are my failed expire-ment!
I'm so sorry, you don't meet the requirement
You're a sign I should have gone into retirement
I'll run into you and drain your life of its entirement - Joe Walsh had a 1973 album titled The Smoker You Drink, the Player You Get.
- The Annals of Improbable Research article "The Missed Education of Harold Dowd" is mostly written in these.
"I'm truly greatful for the opportunity to conceal my views on such an importunate topic, especially considering that your steamed author is a steamed high school dropout."
- A popular feature in Punch! throughout its run, sometimes attributed to the original Mrs Malaprop herself as a columnist.
- Mike Awesome would call WCW interviewer Pamela Paulshock "Paula Pamshock."
- On The Pajanimals, Squacky is at times.
Squacky: It's an oc-a-pus, that's what it is!
Apollo and Cowbella: An oc-a-pus?
Apollo: Oh! It's an oct-o-pus, Squacky!
Squacky: Yeah, that's what I said. An oc-a-pus. - In Die Liewe Heksie, Lavinia the witch has difficulty with long words and peoples' names. Her sophisticated friend Karel Kat has to gently correct her about his helicopter, for instance, not a mielecopter as she describes it.
- The Bob & Ray character of "Word Wizard" Elmer Stapley was given to this trope.
- Nick Depopoulous, the Greek restaurateur on Fibber McGee and Molly. Fibber himself was also given to these on occasion.
- Phil Harris became one of these when he was on The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show.
- Brazilian Dudu Schechtel is infamous for this, to the point he is victim of Person as Verb by his workmates as a synonym for malapropers. The most infamous cases are him telling that tried to buy a lasagna in a drugstore, and saying that "If you leave the fridge on, your phone bill will skyrocket!" (the show's production replied by doing a sketch where his fridge left him a message on the answering machine reminding Dudu that it was on without reason)
- In domcom series At Home With The Hardies, the gang visit the zoo. character Caroline is enchanted by a species of anteater native to South America.
ooh, look! There's an armoured dildo!
- Josh Sundquist has a bit about how a stranger once asked him "How come you don't have a prostate?" - Josh is an amputee and was using crutches at the time, so it's clear through context that the man meant to say "prosthesis":
"As a male, I do have a prostate. I don't have, for example, memory glands or Filipino tubes..."
- Dana Carvey had a stand-up bit about how Mike Tyson would try to use new words he had learned without fully understanding them.
"Y'know, y'know what I'm saying, man, is you've gotta respect everybody's indivisibles, y'know what I'm saying? Cuz everyone's got friends and entities, it's no reason to put 'em up on a pedicure."
- Emil Bollenbach, a Mad Scientist from several Ravenloft adventures, has a bad habit of mixing up common figures of speech.
- As noted on the main page, the Trope Namer is The Rivals by Richard Brinsley Sheridan.
- Older Than Steam: William Shakespeare was fond of having characters, especially lower-class characters who speak in prose, use a number of malapropisms. Tragically, it can be easy to miss the humor if you're not familiar with Elizabethan English, since its archaic but correct terms can disguise the impostors in their midst.
- Amateur thespians and simple tradesmen Quince, Flute, and Bottom the Weaver from A Midsummer Night's Dream speak almost entirely in these.
- Juliet's nurse from Romeo and Juliet also speaks almost entirely in these, for which she is hilariously ridiculed.
Nurse: [to Romeo] If you be he, sir, I desire some confidence with you.
Benvolio: She will indite him to some supper. - Constable Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing, whose watch have comprehended two auspicious persons who will no doubt be condemned into everlasting redemption for their crimes.
- Constable Elbow in Measure for Measure. The babbling constable was a fairly common device in plays of the time, commenting on the fact that it was difficult to get competent people to fill law enforcement positions, due to the low pay.
- When, in Twelfth Night, Olivia comments on Toby Belch's "lethargy," his drunken response is:
Sir Toby: Lechery? I defy lechery!
- Sir Andrew Aguecheek at one point refers to Sebastian as "the very devil incardinate".
- Launcelot and his dad, Old Gobbo, in The Merchant of Venice.
- Launce in Two Gentlemen of Verona has received his proportion, like the prodigious son.
- The Gravedigger in Hamlet is a capable philosopher, but he does tend to make unfortunate substitutions such as argal for ergo.
- Mistress Quickly in the Henriad is also prone to this.
- In Sheer Madness, a policeman makes mistakes like "individualistically" for "individually" and "psychotic" for "psychic". (Note: The show does not follow the exact same script every time, being interactive with the audience and partly improvised.)
- On the Town:
Ivy: Oh, I know. I'm gonna be arrested for disnuding in public.
- In Trial by Jury, the Plaintiff's Counsel objects: "To marry two at once is Burglaree!"
- In Avenue Q, Rod panics when he realizes just how transparent his closet is to all of his friends, and starts singing very quickly and loudly about his "girlfriend who lives in Canada," named Alberta, who lives in Vancouver. (He takes maybe one breath before he finishes the song.) At one point, singing too quickly, he messes up:
"I love her - I miss her - I can't wait to kiss her - so soon I'll be off to Alberta - I mean Vancouver - (aside) shit, her NAME is Alberta, she LIVES in Vancou- she's my girlfriend! My wonderful girlfriend! Yes I have a girlfriend! Who lives! In! CANADA!"
- In Paint Your Wagon, Jennifer tries to tell her father that she's not a child anymore, but can't hide her lack of education: "I'm a growed-up person. I'm feelin' more adulterous all the time!" He gives her a stunned look, then quietly tells her it's not the right word. This is given an echo in a later scene, where Jennifer returns all schooled up, and her father scolds her, "What do you think, just because you're almost eighteen you've reached the age o' maternity?" To which Jennifer replies as he did to her earlier malaproper.
- In Wicked, Madame Morrible and other Ozians sometimes don't get words right. Some examples are "disgusticified" and "braverism." Or a giant banner that reads "CONGRATULOTIONS."
- Leave It to Me!:
Goodhue: I want to say I went to the French Foreign Office—the Fifi D'Orsay.
Thomas: The Quai. D'Orsai. - In The Adding Machine, of the two Jewish Holidays that his employer allows Jews to take off, Mr. Zero only remembers the name of "Young Kipper."
- In The Haunted Through-Lounge and Recessed Dining Nook at Farndale Castle, Lottie Grosskopf is recently arrived from Austria and her grasp of English vocabulary and idiom slips from time to time.
- Ace Attorney:
- Redd White from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, who bungles words in order to make himself seem more impressive. (This is a Woolseyism - in the original Japanese, he speaks Gratuitous English.)
- Zinc Lablanc from Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth, being a Punny Derringer, mangles English idiomatic phrases, followed by remarking "Yes, I think that is how you say it!" On one occasion, Edgeworth corrects his use of "Fox in the duck pen!", replying "It's 'fox guarding the henhouse'."
- In Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor's Gambit, the self-important 17-year-old prosecutor Eustace Winner can't get a single idiom right, constantly using the wrong words for a situation (ie "inculpable" in place of "incapable"). Most of the correct answers in his Mind Chess are of Edgeworth gently correcting him on which words to use.
- In Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, the Judge describes himself as "the great Poker-Head of Courtroom No. 3". Apollo thinks he probably meant "poker-face".
- One gag in Doki Doki Literature Club! has Sayori bungling the word "retribution" after she gets caught trying to trick the player character into buying a snack for her.
Sayori: [after a cookie hits her in the face] I-Is this a miracle? It's because I paid my restitution!
Protagonist: Retribution...
Yuri: Actually, that one almost worked... - Himatsu from GENBA no Kizuna frequently gets long words, from technical terms like telemetry and animatronics to the names of various dinosaurs, wrong.
- Last Chance in Xollywood: At times Uz the stunt coordinator uses Malaproper language, because her universal translator isn't really good at translating her dialect. This causes her some grief, since people usually already look down on her for being from Zoberon: a backwater, war-mongering, "fifth-rate" planet.
- Tavern Talk: As a kid, Melli sometimes mispronounces words and uses the wrong ones. In Tempest Tantrum, she calls the second piece of the mysterious contraption a "sour troop", but Archie corrects her — it's a zoetrope. She also says that Baya got a souvenir from Underwater for "Koreander", when Melli meant Oleander.
- In Virtue's Last Reward, both Sigma and Phi do this. When Sigma does it, he gets called out by Phi. Later, Phi does this by saying "take the piss out of a lime" instead of "as a way to pass the time" and similarly gets called out for her mistake.
- Homestar Runner:
- Senor Cardgage, who can just never decide on what to say. This originated from his conception as "creepy-comb-over Strong Bad", which was Strong Bad's imagination of what he would be like if he wasn't the "stylish, buff, handsome man in a wrestling mask" that he is. One of CCOSB's character tics was that he would "say some cool phrase that's almost one word and not quite another".
Senor Cardgage: Carageenan, Montel John. Can you detect me to the nearest bus stamp?- Strong Bad, who frequently uses portmanteaus by accident, and mixes up phrases in mid-speech:
Strong Bad: I'm not touching that thing, man; it's booby-trapped! It'll shoot a bunch of poisoned-tipped witch doctors at me!
- This has become such a Running Gag on the website that the Wiki site has an article devoted to it
.
- Beeserker, big time. He has a tendency to misconstrue turns of phrase in a Bloody Hilarious way, but there are also a great many times when he mishears those words, meaning even compliments can turn into a hazard.
- Jim, who plays Qui-Gon Jinn in Darths & Droids. As often as not, that's from pretending to know what a word means, often in spite of the fact that the word was made up for the setting. A good example is believing that Jedi is a kind of cheese (which eventually turned Jedi Knights into Cheddar Monks).
- Dean & Nala + Vinny: A Running Gag with Nala. For instance, she play acts that she is Princess Mononoke but pronounces the name as "Princess Mononucleosis".
- In Everyday Heroes, Goldie described Jane as having "a black belt in takemdown" (taekwando).
- Goblins: Minmax has a habit of misunderstanding words, such as interpreting "therapeutic" as "Sara puked it" or "pendulum" as "panda lung".
- The villain For Whom the Death Tolls in Grrl Power continuously corrects people by stating that his name is a malaproper. Everyone else points out that not only does it sound really lame, but also doesn't make sense. And, in keeping with thinking he's an ineffective villain, ends up with googly eyes on his mask and then ignored.
- Coyote from Gunnerkrigg Court seems incapable of pronouncing Antimony Carver's name, rendering it as Abalone, Acrimony Barber, or just Firehead Girl. By this point, it may be more of an in-joke than anything else.
- In Huckleberry, the eponymous protagonist sometimes mixes up words and sayings, like saying "armordingo" instead of "armadillo", or "who in tarantula" instead of "who in tarnation".
- This does not occur very often in Nixvir, but the dialogue sometimes slips up in regards to the Flowery Elizabethan English in which the characters speak, for example "thou hath" rather than "thou hast" or "maidens hath" rather than "maidens have." The enchanted mirror of Old Harry Flowerpot is especially guilty of this, given that, when describing Flowerpot's old friend Gyzes' crimes, it states that he "ravaged" his queen instead of "ravished".
- The Order of the Stick:
- Belkar mishears "sextant" as "sex taint," which results in him taking Roy to see prostitutes instead of a cartographer. When Roy tries to correct him, Belkar then sources a cart of gophers.
- When hyperactive eight-year-old Greta is being restrained, she claims that "This is a vibration of my silly rights!" (violation of civil rights)
- Questionable Content:
- "I might not be the sharpest bulb in the box but I'm not THAT gullible." The sharpest bulb in the box being the broken one, of course. Of note is that Raven has previously used this correctly
.
- In #3249
, Faye gets the term "raison d'étre" wrong, instead saying "raisin d'entree".
- "I might not be the sharpest bulb in the box but I'm not THAT gullible." The sharpest bulb in the box being the broken one, of course. Of note is that Raven has previously used this correctly
- This
xkcd comic coins the term "malamanteau", for a malapropism created by combining two words. (The word is a combination of "malapropism" and "portmanteau", which is a combination of two words in this manner.) As of this writing there's a lengthy discussion on Wikipedia regarding what should be done about the entry (which, like the word itself, did not exist until the comic went up).
- ToasterLeavings's writeups at Everything2. Werd in dude!! (and by dude I also mean a ven diagram protractoring includesive of all hot chicks)...
- Branca Braunstein of Survival of the Fittest is starting to mis-speak a fair bit; mostly because she's deluded herself into believing she is one of her "friends" who is far more upper-class than her, so to speak. This coming directly after Branca killed aforementioned "friend".
Branca: That's is a mag-mag... magnitude idea! Glad I Thought of It.
- Torq, the Half-Orc Fighter of Critical Hit tends to do this with any multi-syllabic words, especially if they come from someone else's mouth first.
- JonTron tends to do this in his unscripted videos, namely, those made as part of the Game Grumps.
Jontron: *describing the importance of Kirby obtaining the Hammer ability* We need this, this hits wooden.
- Also discussed on Game Grumps during one episode, in which Danny describes the potential hilarity that can come from someone trying out an idiom that they don't quite understand, e.g. "screwed the pooch":
Danny: DAMMIT! I had sex with the dog! I really fellated a canine!- Ross is also known for his malapropisms on the show, such as "really throwing a wrench into that triangle" and "we're all cavemen eventually". Danny reportedly keeps a list of these "Rossisms", and fans have taken to cataloging them
as well.
- Party Crashers: In "Mario Party 7's WORST Map
", Nick misreads heroine as heroin, leading to a Running Gag that Shy Guy has a drug addiction.
- The episode of Pokémon The Abridged Series in which the heroes meet Sabrina, the Psychic Gym Leader, saw malapropisms of such words as "psychopath" and "psychic-ologist", much to the annoyance of Brock.
- Wood Burns of Where the Bears Are has a photogenic memory, knows what evidence tamponing is, and will have you know that Dumbo is a delicious dish made from sausage, rice, and shrimp.
- It has become a fairly widespread Tumblr meme to mangle Benadryl Computerglitch's name to the point of comical inaccuracy, yet still be immediately aware of who is being referenced.
- When referring to the Doctor Who serial "The Edge of Destruction", Who Back When host Ponken will consistently refer to it as "The Edge of Descrussion."
- Neil Cicierega milks this for all it's worth in his "Guide to" series, which are mostly accurate guides to subjects including The Lord of the Rings to Tom Hanks films in terms of order of events, but with glaringly incorrect names.
HanksMaster: Tom Hanks got his start on the hit sitcom The Booty Brothers with Peegle Scalia
, which led to a breakout starring role in Ron Howler's Splanch with Dairy Hamper, followed by comedies such as Barnacle Portal, This Man Has One Wet Foot, and The Pony Pimp, and dramas such as Nomming on Cotton with Jabby Gleeksquad
, Everybody Dance Now, and crime films like Pregnet with Dan Ass. Then, one of his most famous roles: Bag, which marked the Tom Hanks evolution from boy to man.
- r/BoneAppleTea
is a subreddit dedicated to posting instances of malapropisms. The subreddit's name is itself a mangling of "Bon appetit".
- Daithi De Nogla, thanks to his frequent mangling of words and sentences, very out-there Irish brogue, and wonky microphone, does this just about anytime he opens his mouth.
- SCP Foundation: One of the sillier objects protected by the foundation is SCP-586
, a length of green metal pipe that causes anyone trying to describe it in writing to make typos and malapropisms. This even extends to the "file imagine" of the object being a green Pope instead of a green pipe.
- In Dragon Ball Z Abridged, Goku has this problem, what with being the ultimate Idiot Hero. Ultimately, it gets so bad that Mr. Popo kicks him off Kami's Lookout for all the times he mangled "Hyperbolic Time Chamber".
Goku: We have to wait for Vegeta and Trunks to come out of the Hypertonic Lion Tamer.
Mr. Popo: That one was on purpose!
Goku: Could've been. - In Solid jj's Stoogeposting videos, all three brothers do this, but Curly is the most obvious:
- Although he pronounces it correctly, the subtitles in "The Three Stooges run for office" reveals that he says "martial law" as "marshal law."
- In "The Three Stooges go Job Hunting," Curly is asked if he has experience sanitizing and replies, "I'm always sanitizing about the pretty girls."
- In "Doctor Strange Multiverse of Stooges":
Wong: Wait, you're multiversal, too?
Curly: No, we're only versed in English, but we're the bestest at it!"
- MandJTV: Team Sky!Mikey occasionally gets into this, saying "Paladea" for "Paldea" and "Ghetosis" for "Ghetsis".
- Thanks for visiting TB Popes!

