Malaprop

The Pallisades by Ashcan School Artist Ernest Lawson from early 20th century. (on view at the Saint Louis Art Museum)

   

mal·a·prop

/ˈmaləˌpräp/

noun

1. the mistaken use of a word in place of a similar-sounding one, often with unintentionally amusing effect, as in, for example, “dance a flamingo ” (instead of flamenco )

Comedian Norm Crosby* used to say "I resemble that remark" which is a good example of a malaprop when delivered brings a smile but is pretty plain to understand what the speaker meant.

My wife once chided me when she didn't like something I said or did with the phrase "Your attitude is rancid". When I pointed out that word was not communicating what she wanted to say, she tried to defend it with a more comprehensive flurry of adjectives that told me that my behavior was rotten, tainted or just not right. It makes me smile still when I think of her using that phrase. I try now to have a sweeter disposition that might never again be so repugnant as spoiled meat.

I have had quite a few conversations about fine art with friends since I am big fan of art available for public viewing in my hometown art museum and whenever I have time as I travel to other cities. Janie has one of those predicable art responses at times. She is not impressed with a Mark Rothko color field painting, saying that she feels that as a viewer, she is entitled to know what she likes. Never mind how this tends to discount the study of art history, art criticism, curators, popular culture and perhaps hundreds of factors that qualify a work as art (or not). She reduces her experience of the Rothko with a cousin to "a child could do that" with her summary review - It looks like a lampshade. This is a fair comment I suppose but It might be dismissed in an intellectual discussion of of post war artists commenting on the New York School and/or on the heels of the breakthrough of the action painting of Abstract Expressionists like Jackson Pollock. 

Never mind the art talk. I find myself preaching about the importance of the story teller. Janie has heard me preach about this nearly as often as my references to fine art viewing. It might be precisely why she's inadvertently cooked up her own malaprop. (I think she is unaware of it, but here goes.) Janie, in the middle of a conversation of no specific purpose, states "Like you say: the truth is in the eye of the beholder." Well this one kind belongs in a safe among the best examples. It feels like I am the origin since my insistence the "the truth belongs to the teller" and her insistence that art is determined by "what I like" as in "the eye of the beholder". 

So the expression gets a bit jumbled but in an artful way when she says - "As you say, truth is in the eye of the beholder." (Maybe this is more a mixed metaphor than a malaprop. It's amusing nevertheless.)

*Norman Lawrence Crosby (September 15, 1927 – November 7, 2020) was an American comedian born in Boston, Massachusetts. He was often referred to as "The Master of Malaprop".

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