Cephalogenic

or, stuff that I dragged out of my head

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Location: Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Maladaptation

Here's a bit from Salon.com's review of that new Adam Sandler movie:

Sandler's performance here is both ridiculous and winning: Instead of coasting, as he usually does, on his aw-shucks boyishness, he clearly has a good time amping it up as an English-mangling sex god. (He gets a great malapropism with the line, "Stick a fork in the fat lady; it's done! She's eaten.")

Well, you tell me; where's the malapropism?

A malapropism is a very specific turn of speech: whether deliberately (for comedic purposes) or accidentally committed, it relies on the misuse of one word, usually a long or slightly esoteric one, in place of the correct one; "apprehensive" instead of "comprehensive", for instance.

The line in question is just a garden-variety mistake of the sort that a non-native speaker might make. It sure isn't a malapropism.

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