Journal of a Living Lady #106
Nancy White Kelly
Somebody asked me recently
if I ever come up empty when I sit down to write this weekly column. My answer
was a definite,
“
yes.” In journalistic ranks, word
famine is frequently referred to as “writer’s block.” Surely there is a pill
awaiting FDA approval that will unlock your vowels.
Many times I have plopped my hands on a typewriter or computer keyboard without a clue as to what was coming forth. Deadlines don’t wait on inspiration. I start writing whatever comes to mind. When my brain stops dictating words to my fingers, I usually take a temporary leave of absence lasting from a few minutes to hours. Occasionally it has taken me three days to type ten paragraphs from first draft to finality. Those are the really tough weeks. Every now and then the sentences flow quite easily. Today is not one of those times.
I decided to try the “dip” method to
spur me on. I gently shoved Snowball off my lap and plopped the forty-pound
unabridged dictionary in her place. She meowed in protest.
With my
right index finger, I stabbed the edges
of the hefty lexicon. There was method to this madness. I had predetermined
that whatever word the tip of that finger landed on would be the subject of
this column. Wouldn’t you know that my finger landed on “malapropism.”
Without reading the definition, I tried to guess
what it meant. Since Buddy was an aircraft mechanic until retirement and both
of us were casual pilots, the “prop” part jumped out of the aviation reservoir
of my medulla. I reasoned that if there were faulty airplane engines, maybe a
malapropism was a failure in the rotation of an airplane propeller. Logical, but wrong.
Malapropism is a wacky word that was first used by
an uppity character named Mrs. Malaprop in a humorous play written in 1775.
Please remember that in case you are ever a contestant on the Millionaire show.
If you win, I want half.
Malapropism. It means an act or habit of misusing
words ridiculously. For example, damp weather is hard on the sciences.
As a teacher, I saw many student bloopers. “Abraham
Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address while traveling from Washington To
Gettysburg on the back of an envelope.” The best one illustrated that some people truly are larger than life: “Handel
was half German, half Italian, and half English.”
A good friend, Bob Cleveland from Alabama, usually ends his email to me
with one of my Cinderella favorites: “Don’t forget to slop your dripper.” I
don’t need to. I already have Buddy.
Several malapropisms have fallen from my lips
through the years. Some intentional. Others not. A few have been hard to live
down. One Sunday morning I reminded junior highs students to “love your
enemas.”
As I get older and my mind slips further, I fear that I will commit a faux pas like my
father did when Buddy and I married in 1965. When the preacher asked, “Who
giveth this woman to lawfully wed…,” my nervous dad replied, “His mother
and I.”
Hopefully, in our senility, Buddy and I won’t send out future wedding invitations that say, “Mr. and Mrs. Hiram E. Kelly request your presents at the marriage of their son, Charles.” If so, please ignore the malapropism and send presents anyway.
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March 21, 2001
