play malaprops

[Wilson Gray]

On 6/6/07, Laurence Urdang <urdang at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Urdang <urdang at SBCGLOBAL.NET>
> Subject:      Re: play malaprops
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I don't think that items like nasturtiums for aspersions are puns, either.  Nor are they really malapropisms.  In another day, I'd have called them Jane Ace-isms, for Goodman Ace's wife Jane into whose mouth he would put things like, You could have knocked me over with a fender, Don't just sit there like a bum on a log, etc., familiar to old fogies like me who remember 1930s' radio.
>   L. Urdang
>
And there was _Mr. Ace and Jane_ on 1940's radio.

-Wilson

> Jesse Sheidlower <jester at PANIX.COM> wrote:
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> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Jesse Sheidlower
> Subject: Re: play malaprops
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>
> On Wed, Jun 06, 2007 at 08:24:36AM -0700, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
> > from my friend Tim McDaniel in e-mail 6/4/07, about the intelligence
> > of penguins:
> >
> > Sorry to cast nasturtiums on your totemic bird.
> >
> > i told him i appreciated the play malaprop, and he replied that it
> > wasn't original with him, but (he thought) pretty old, possibly from
> > the Dowager Duchess of Denver in the Lord Peter Wimsey novels.
> >
> > i got 76 google webhits (with "similar pages" etc. removed) for "cast
> > nasturtiums", 86 for "casting nasturtiums", and 4 for "casts
> > nasturtiums", so it has a modest web presence.
> >
> > Urban Dictionary has "nasturtiums" as "old yorkshire speak, part of a
> > phrase", with an example of "casting nasturtiums about" something.
> > the "Slang and colloquialisms of the UK" site
> > (http://www.peevish.co.uk/slang)
> > says
> > *cast nasturtiums* _Verb_. To sully a person's reputation. A
> > pun on 'cast aspersions'.
> >
> > it seems to me that "pun" is not quite the right label here, though
> > phonological similarity is involved. the relationship is much like
> > that in classical malaprops, except that the choice of the wrong item
> > is deliberate. so i called it a "play malaprop"; "mock malaprop"
> > might be even better.
> >
> > a little while back, we talked about some similar examples here --
> > little mock malaprops from friends and family. unfortunately, i've
> > forgotten the examples and can't find them now. anybody recall them?
>
> I don't remember this discussion, but some others that come to
> mind are "cast asparagus" for "cast aspersions" (a few exx. in
> HDAS, one from Dos Passos), "au reservoir", "horse's ovaries"
> (for "hors d'oeuvres"), "Lost Wages" (for Las Vegas), and
> "mercy buckets" (for "merci beaucoup").
>
> Jesse Sheidlower
> OED
>
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