Being an enormous fan of English classics, I was mesmerized by the book Rivals by the author Sheridan. In particular, I was intrigued and fascinated by the character, Mrs Malaprop, who had the uncanny way of mixing up words – usually big words – with other words sounding similar – all with a very humorous outcome. In fact, so successfully and inanely did she do this that the term “malapropism” has been introduced in the English language.

Let me elucidate on some moments where I have used words for other words that sound similar. I don’t know, however, whether they are termed “malapropisms.”

I once remember an office where much of the work was to deliver results in sales promptly and efficiently. Imagine the scenario when once one of the employees said, “We have to analyse the anal plans by this afternoon”! What she of course meant was that the “annual” plans had to be analysed!
This inadvertent slip of the tongue caused a situation ensconced in mirth and hilarity!

But the joke of all jokes with misuse of words that sound similar could be the following, which involved my 9-year-old niece, Inchara, and her mother, Shwetha. My niece, Inchara, was a delightful and precocious young girl who was just beginning to hone and ameliorate her English vocabulary by learning bigger and longer English words.
Being an only child, she often conjured up games which she could play by herself, and in this way she was fully immersed in the card game of “patience”.

She arranged the cards with intensity and determination infused on her pretty face. Just then her mother called her for her afternoon snacks and tea for which the lovely child said, “Don’t disturb me now, mummy, I’m trying my best to constipate” (instead of concentrate)!