Published on 12, July, 2020
I love malapropisms: similar-sounding but incorrect words, which sometimes have a humorous effect.
Here are a couple of recent ones:
Have you seen any funny word stuff? If so, do share!
It's so interesting how we mishear sing lyrics - and once you get that other version in your head it's hard to let go of! I was listening to Tracy Chapman's Telling Stories earlier - I was convinced she sang "there's friction between me and the world" but when I looked at the lyrics of course it was fiction!
I want to change my name to Crash Blossom if I get a diagnosis. It will be like a new beginning! I notice lots of things about words, fonts too. I always enjoyed wordy puzzles in the Reader''s Digest (that great waiting room time filler).
I was working in the north of Romania back in 1997 being driven along a twisty mountain road listening to Neil Diamond on the stereo - it was brilliant and slightly surreal!
I remember being told by my father that if I told fibs I would get a black mark on my soul.
Just as I was getting into bed, I looked at the bottom of my feet and was relieved to see that there was no black marks there .... phew!
And misheard song lyrics. In the song 'Build me up Buttercup' there is a line which I thought went: "I'll bring my xylophone waiting for you"
And the Gareth Gates song which he said he was 'Gonna deep-fry now'. And I still swear that is what he says!
Barry Manilow once sang of the 'Co-op Banana' for some reason which I could not think why.
There are various versions of the 'London Prayer' which go something like:
Our FarndonWhich aren't in HendonHarrow be thy nameThy KensingtonThy WimbledonIn Erith, as it is in CroydonGive us this day our LeatherheadAnd forgive us our by-passesAs we forgive those who by-pass against usAnd lead us not in to Thames DittonFor thine is the KingstonThe Tower and the PurleyFor Esher and EsherBig Ben
Wonderful idea, Sunflower; I love all forms of word play, especially the unintended ones. My favourite are "crash blossoms", where signs and news headlines shorten things in strangely ambiguous ways that conjure up surreal images. For example (taken from this webpage)...
Martian Tom
Your Shakespeare parody is amazing! In my book, there is no such thing as a bad pun - the worse, the funnier, I usually find!
And...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2_6mKhZIec
Twitter!
This one, too...
Mispronunciations
You beat me to it posting this. I do love this clip.
Gotta post this...
Fork Handles
Excellent!
I know you're not a Twitter fan, but Brian Bilston has attracted lots of followers and published books on the back of his account:
Genius! You really ought to have a wider audience (can I be your agent?!)
If you like word-play... I once re-wrote Hamlet's 'To be, or not to be' soliloquy for weight-watchers. Sorry... some of the puns aren't good...
THE WEIGHT-WATCHER’S SOLILOQUY
…with apologies to Will Shakespeare!
Tubby, or not tubby: fat is the question:
whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to consume
the sweets and mallows of outrageous feeding,
or to take arms against a sea of cellulite,
and by abstaining lose it. To diet? To slim?
No more! (and by slimming to say we end
the gut ache and the thousand caramel chocs
the flesh will sag to!) ‘Tis a consummation
devoutly to be wished?
To diet. To slim.
To slim - perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub,
for as we starve to death what creams may come
when we have shuffled off this mortal flab,
must give us pause? There’s the dessert
that makes calamity of so long abstinence:
for who would bear the nips and chews of lettuce,
the depressing crispbread, the gourmet’s contempt,
the pangs of eternal hunger, the jaw’s decay,
the indolence of orifice, and the churns
that vacant corners of the stomach make
when you yourself might your quietus make
with a bare gherkin? Who could even bear
to shrink and sag under a boring diet,
but that the thought of something after dinner…
the undiscovered pantry, to whose shelves
all serious eaters return, unmuzzles the gob,
and makes us hap’ly scoff those things we want,
then sample others that we know not of.
Thus, chocolate does make cowards of us all,
and thus the native hue of resolution
is sicklied o’er with the tempting whiff of chips,
and sticky buns of great size and density,
with this regard their currants multiply,
and lose the name ‘forbidden’.
Me, too. I loved Neil Diamond as a teen (still do, really). His song 'I am, I said' had me amused for years, until I realised he was singing 'I never cared for the sound of being alone.' I thought he was singing 'I never cared for the sound of ELO.'
Ha! Brilliant!
So glad I started this thread. Needed something to make me smile this evening :-)
Does that mean they never had sectional intercourse? (nicked that from Spike Milligan in 'Adolf Hitler, My Part In His Downfall')
The eccentric landlady of a shared house I once lived in told me her husband was 'impudent' (impotent)!
Oh that's so perfect!