Take down his perpendiculars.....

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What are the funniest words to confuse? Peccary and pessary? Addendum and pudendum?

Have you ever heard anyone make an amusing malapropism, or have you made any yourself?

― MarkH, Monday, 28 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

My Geography teacher last year used to think hypocritical was pronounced "hype-o-critical" and he thought it meant "very critical". So he'd say "I was quite hypocritical correcting those essays".

Fuckin thick bastard, we used to have bets about what words he'd spell wrong. I remember winning a fiver with "airoplane".

― Ronan, Monday, 28 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Pathetic and prophetic. Particularly when applied to King Arse, Nostradamus.

― Jonnie, Monday, 28 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I once read virginal as vaginal (out loud in front of a group of people SOME TIME AGO I hasten to add). Oops.

― Emma, Monday, 28 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

the classic on blockbusters when someone told bob 'orgasm' rather than 'organism'.

I often misread things. whole sentences.

― richard john gillanders, Monday, 28 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Now them's a story.

When small and wee, I referred to the hibiscus flower in Hawaii, where I lived, as 'high biscuits.' I prefer my version.

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 28 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

In primary school maths I was sent into another classroom to ask for some pieces of junior maths learning equipment called symetry tiles. I actually did ask for symetry tiles, but the teacher and the whole class misheard and thought I'd marched in and demanded sanitary towels.

― Anna, Monday, 28 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

(tiles = towels = poshest school EVAH!!)

― mark s, Monday, 28 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

A girl in our biology class once did the classic orgasm/organism thing. Actually, maybe it was the teacher. She was a bit ditzy.

― N., Monday, 28 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

organic ~= orgasmic, erratic ~= erotic, and the hilarious triad that is tentacles/spectacles/testicles.

― Alan Trewartha, Monday, 28 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

that reminds me of the proper way to cross yrself (spectacles, testicles, wallet & watch)

― MarkH, Monday, 28 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I find it fun to deliberately substitue 'risque' for 'risky'. and vice-versa. I find it fun. once I deliberately used 'incinerate' rather than 'insinuate' to a religious education teacher. she mocked me. then I mocked her. I was popular in school.

― richard john gillanders, Monday, 28 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

People seem to mix up 'imply' and 'infer' a lot. And 'procrastinate' and 'prevaricate'. But I guess that isn't very amusing at all.

For some reason, I enjoy deliberately replacing 'erratic' with 'erotic'. I don't know why.

― N., Monday, 28 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

As in the well known phrase "ooh, Nick, your penis is very erotic".

― Pete, Monday, 28 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yes, just like that.

― N., Monday, 28 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

people often choose words that don't mean what they try to make them mean. it's funny how definitions change. 'decimate' can nowadays refer to large scale destruction 'n' that but was originally all about the killing of one in every ten bad slaves/disobedients in, like, bloody roman times or something.

― richard john gillanders, Monday, 28 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

OH DEAR LORD. I have an aunt who mis-uses "magnanimous" to mean "large" as in: The dining room was of a magnanimous size. She also refers to drug users as "crack attics" and the list goes on. Sorry to hijack as this isn't *quite* the intent of the thread, but that woman works on my last nerve. Someday I'm going to break a Waterford decanter over her self-important head.

Um "staunch" and "stanch" are frequently confused, but results not usually very notable.

― Pyth, Monday, 28 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

my mum referred to "serving the web" several times the other night.

she meant "surfing" but I think she's onto something.

― fritz, Monday, 28 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Mums and their intuition.

I find myself saying "hmm.. VACCINATING!" instead of "fascinating!". Only I find this funny.

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 28 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Our local paper once referred to a "book suppository" rather than "depository," in an article about the local school district. They printed a correction a couple days later, with an apology.

― nickn, Monday, 28 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I imagine using the book suppository would be done with extreme care.

― electric sound of jim, Monday, 28 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Today I heard Polaroid for paranoid.

― Damian, Tuesday, 29 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

okay. This is going to take some time.

When I was smaller than the long grass in summer (so about twenty five years ago) I had a teddy bear thatI loved very much. His name was Paisley, and my father admitted many years later that he had suggested this name for said ted because of his russet/orange hue. SO my ted was named, sickly enough, after the arch bigot the Rev. Ian. My Pop isn't sectarian, he's just got an odd sense of humour. If this was not enough, ma and Pa insisted on dragging me to church nearly every sunday (The Crown Court Church of Scotland, Drury Lane, to be precise) where I sang children's hymns, one of which was 'Praise him, Praise him, all thechildren love him - he is love, he is love'. To my infants' ears the massed congregation seemed to be singing 'Paisley, Paisley, All the children love him'. For a while aged 2/3 I believed the purpose of the old smelly building, the singing and candles and all, the whole church thing, was to shower my teddy with praise.

This isn't exactly germaine to this thread but I feel a hell of a lot better getting it off my chest.

― misterjones, Tuesday, 29 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Germaine probably wasn't germane either

― electric sound of jim, Tuesday, 29 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

A girl in our biology class once did the classic orgasm/organism thing

Did none of you go to school with children? I thought school-law states someone try this gag at least a thousand times a biology lesson. I shall ask my high-school biology-teaching sister-in-law.

― Graham, Tuesday, 29 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

prostate vs. prostrate
the infamous typo - public vs. pubic

― Kim, Tuesday, 29 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

In fulfillment of my semi-official position as "Education Officer" for the Law Student Society at my university, I had to put a handbook together on the internet detailing the relative performance of various law lecturers for the aid of students choosing streams (you can find it here). Pressed for time at the last minute, I didn't bother to properly screen all submissions from helpful law students. Imagine my surprise when a lecturer called to politely inform me that a student had described her lecturing style as "scatalogical" rather than "scatterbrained".

― Tim, Wednesday, 30 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

mandee talked about people that say 'I CAN'T PHANTOM THAT.' when they're talking about fathoming.

― richard john gillanders, Wednesday, 30 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

When I was at school, a fellow classmate was reading out loud a story he had written. At one point some testicles burst out of the wall and grabbed the hero. Cue: great hilarity.

Of course he meant tentacles.

― mms, Wednesday, 30 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

postulating and pustulating.

― emil.y, Friday, 1 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

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