| 词组 | malapropism |
| 释义 | malapropism No writer likes to waste good material. Usage writers are no different, and we suspect that the heading malapropism in several books attests to this natural frugality. Entries can be found in Todd & Hancock 1986, Harper 1975, 1985, Reader's Digest 1983, Bremner 1980, Phythian 1979, Perrin & Ebbitt 1972, and Watt 1967, among others. We are joining the group. Malapropism is much older as a phenomenon than it is as a word. The word, coined from Mrs. Malaprop, a character in Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The Rivals (1775), only came into use in the 19th century. But the botching of big words goes back at least to the 16th century, when writers of scholarly intent introduced many words from Latin into the language. McKnight 1928 notes that considerable fun was derived by writers from the difficulty uneducated or partially educated people had with hard words. Sir Thomas Wilson, in his Arte of Rhétorique of 1553—not a place you would ordinarily look for laughs—has several such passages purporting to be from genuine speech. McKnight observes that Shakespeare used the same sort of speech for some of his comic characters, notably the police officers Elbow and Dogberry, as well as Mrs. Quickly and various clowns and country folk. Jespersen, in Growth and Structure of the English Language (1905), makes the point that English literature is richer in this sort of humor than that of any other language. Jespersen and Bolinger 1980 discuss the causes of malapropism. Bolinger identifies it as a failure of contrast—the words are close enough in sound or appearance to be used one for the other. Jespersen notes that hard words are usually cut off from ordinary words; they share neither etymological roots nor associations of ideas with the common stock of the vocabulary. They must therefore be learned in isolation, and this isolation makes it easier for them to be exchanged for a similarly isolated hard word. Bolinger says that malapropism is a regular adornment of jargon, jargon being language that is full of specialized terms unconnected to ordinary discourse. He gives as an example from jargon a linguist's substitution of tenant for tenet; we have a like example in our own files: • ... posits counter-arguments for some of Chomsky's basic tenants —Linguistic Reporter, September 1974 So we have two kinds of malapropism—the deliberate confusion of hard words for humorous effect that has been used by writers from Shakespeare's time and before, and inadvertent malapropisms committed by people not trying to be funny. Unconscious malapropisms are undoubtedly more common in speech than in writing. Here are three from local radio stations: • Bob Lemon will be delegated to the front office — 19 June 1979 • ... driving without a license or resignation —5 Jan. 1980 • ... arraigned ... on a charge of statuary rape —9 May 1983 They can also be found in reported speech: • ... the ability to zero in on the essence of a problem and synthesize it for the Governor —in N. Y. Times Mag, 29 June 1980 • ... what it's gonna affect is our truth and velocity with the citizens — in Playboy, November 1983 • Admiral Rickover worked deciduously during his 54 years of naval service —in James J. Kilpatrick's column, Medford (Oreg.) Mail Tribune, 8 Jan. 1985 And they turn up in writing too: • There was some worry in the clubhouse, though, and it emulated from Lynn —reporter, Springfield (Mass.) Republican, 22 Apr. 1979 • ... one of those ersatz plaster-and-lathe motel complexes —reporter, Rolling Stone, 17 Feb. 1972 • The vision of Safirius Arbiter is an awesome one, since Safire is neither an entomologist nor an expert on usage —reviewer, Saturday Rev., November 1980 • ... the most famous diet-conscious Red Sox because of his chicken regiment —reporter, Springfield (Mass.) Morning Union, 4 Sept. 1985 • ... you'll use these porcelains to dramatize a table or as limelights on an important armoire shelf —advt., N.Y. Times, 26 Apr. 1981 • ... recommended the merger as a money-saving mechanism that would eliminate the duplicity of services —reporter, Springfield (Mass.) Morning Union, 2 Nov. 1983 Malapropisms are venial sins. They are sometimes funny, and many writers on usage collect them, sometimes to prick pretension, sometimes to illustrate a threnody for the state of American education, or sometimes just for laughs. Humor writers will probably never stop using them. But they represent only a failure of the memory to retain the distinctive features of two different words. If you are trying to expand your vocabulary, you will probably drop a clanger now and then. We all do. An occasional linguistic pratfall seems not to be too high a price to pay for a richer vocabulary. A related phenomenon is the mixed metaphor, likewise prominently displayed for fun in many usage books. And, yes, see also mixed metaphor in this book. |
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