Dave Wood

MALAPROPISM—a confused use of words in which an appropriate word is replaced by one with a similar sound but a ludicrously inappropriate meaning.  From the French “mal a propos” (“badly suited’) -Webster’s College Dictionary

The great 18^th-century dramatist Richard Brinsley Sheridan got a lot of laughs in “The Rivals,” when he created a blunderer he called Mrs. Malaprop, who repeatedly committed verbal gaffs that left British audiences guffawing, no, probably tittering (after all the were British!). Centuries later at the late great South Fork Café, our table of “Sages” guffawed when former university president George Field dropped a malapropism on our group: referring to his Florida retirement complex as “Seizure” World rather than Leisure World. 

Sadly George was really seized several years ago, but his purposeful malapropism continues to amuse me, as I’m certain it also amuses his old pal Mel Germanson before he recently passed on to The Great Registrar’s Office in the Sky.

George Field’s on-target verbal byplay wasn’t the only malapropism dropped over the delicious hashed browns served at the South Fork, but these weren’t on purpose, like this one, from a well-known townie who exclaimed:  I’ve worked out every day for weeks at the Wilderness Center and I haven’t lost a pound!” The gentleman meant to refer to the Wellness Center, but you know they sound so much alike….

Yeah, I know, but what about the next day when your table talk again took to matters of health and you said “My cousin had a procto exam the other day and the doctor had to remove five scallops! ‘Geeze,’ replied ‘Beaner’ Frye. ‘Those scallop shells are really sharp. That must have really smarted!’ The next time I go to the procto I’ll be HAPPY if he finds Polyps.’”

Mangling words is nothing new in these United States, so my pal Minnesota publicist Owen Oxley, a proper gent from Great Britain, decided to publish a pamphlet we titled “Minnesotans Say the Darndest Things,” stealing shamelessly from oleaginous Art Linkletter, who once convinced a little kid to say over the air “No, we’re never lonesome when daddy goes on the road. My uncle comes over and sleeps with mom.” Shame on you Arthur! At least we didn’t pick on poor little kids and lonesome women, and we were helped by then state senator Duane Benson of Lanesboro who contributed a flock of boners spoken by elite members of the Minnesota legislature.

The pamphlets sold like hotcakes and in my move to River Falls I misplaced my only copy, but I still remember a few Lulus. Like when a minion of the group supporting Eugene McCarthy’s first run for the Senate asked a Wanamingo district resident what he thought of longtime senator Edward Thye, the old Norse farmer replied, “Waaal, there’s not much EXTRA there.” McCarthy ran and won.

But the most memorable of the Pols was Charlie Stenvig, the erstwhile Minneapolis cop turned mayor. When asked why he lost the mayor’s race, Charlie replied: “How could I win, with Hofstede and the Star Tribune both hurling insinuedoes at me?”

Knowing that Charlie was an Augsburg grad, I called English department chair, Ron Palosaari, and asked if they should take credit for teaching Charlie to merge “inuendo” and “insinuation”? “No,” Palosaari replied, “But it would have been pretty clever of us!”