classical malapropism / mishearing

[Arnold Zwicky]

from Michael Quinion's World Wide Words #648  7/18/09:

   On 13 July, Kenneth Huey found this sentence in the Huffington Post
in a piece on steroids in sport: "Knowing his erasable personality, Ty
would most likely be a perfect example of 'roid-rage'." Having your
personality erased would surely make anybody angry.

as far as i can see, the irascible/erasable relationship is entirely
phonological, so this is either a classical malapropism or a
mishearing (or has contributions from each).

arnold

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