Did You Know?
MALAPROPISMS
When people accidentally use a word that is a homophone or close homophone of the correct word (for example, antidote for anecdote), they are committing a malapropism. The term comes from a character in a play, namely Mrs Malaprop in Sheridan's 1775 play The Rivals. Needless to say, Mrs Malaprop's chief trait is that she is always mixing up similar words. Obviously, she is a comic character and the play is a comedy. She says things such as, 'Illiterate him from your memory,' meaning, of course, 'Obliterate him from your memory'.
A modern example of a malapropism is from a parliamentarian who was talking about a method of preserving food by subjecting it to radiation. Instead of talking about food irradiation he said food eradication!