More Joy of Malaprops
This is part 3 in an ongoing project to collect and highlight gems of real-life (mis)usages culled from the World Wide Web (and, occasionally, from other sources.) The following conversation is fictional, but the malaprops are all true:
“I saw a job listing the other day and my interest was peaked.”
“This is just my two sense, but if you want my in put, I think you should apply for it.”
“Maybe I’m just obstinant, but I have a deep-seeded wish to find a job that, in good conscious, I can really feel makes a difference in the world. A lot of the time now days I feel like I just tow the party line.”
“Well, I don’t mean to put you on a pedastool, but with your talents, I think that for all intensive purposes, it’s uninevitable that you’ll be able to fanangle a really good job.”
“I hope so. It’s a doggy dog world out there.”
(Malaprop count: 13. Find them all!)
May 20, 2008 at 12:19 pm
ouch
May 21, 2008 at 7:33 am
I think I have to vote for “pedastool” and “uninevitable” as my favorites.
May 21, 2008 at 10:02 am
Mine is doggy dog world, hands down. (Suddenly I realize I don’t know where the saying “hands down” comes from. Does it mean the voting’s over?) But the ones you mentioned are pretty great, too — and instead of having to stand all the time, I assume that on a pedastool you get to sit, which could alleviate some of the discomfort of being put there.
May 21, 2008 at 10:54 am
So I looked it up — “hands down” comes from horse racing and dates to about the mid-nineteenth century. A jockey who was very far ahead in the race could afford to relax his grip on the reigns and let his hands down, so “hands down” came to be used metaphorically to mean an easy win.