Nigerian malaproppery

[Laurence Horn]

>>>>... He died after an epigrammatic illness that lasted for
>>>>only four days...
>>
>>as so often happens, a malaprop has induced the tip-of-the-tongue state
>>in me.  help!  what was the writer aiming at with "epigrammatic"?
>>"epidemic"?  "dramatic"?  what?
>
>I suspect maybe "brief".
>
>Maybe "brief" has been replaced with the sometimes-synonymous
>"epigrammatic" through crude automated translation or unskillful use of a
>thesaurus.
>
Waitaminute.  I think I have a report in my epigrammaticcase dealing
with just this issue.  I just wish my epigrammatics weren't so tight.

L