🚀 go-pugleaf

David J. Daulton writes:

	Rheal Nadeau quotes a dictionary:

		Malapropism - "a usually humorous misapplication of 
		a word; specif:  the use of a word sounding somewhat 
		like the one intended but ludicrously wrong in the 
		context" 

	Which calls to mind "solecism", which is similar, but is based more
	on the idea of a corruption of a word, versus "malapropism's"
	inappropriateness.

Fowler -- always good for a chuckle -- has this to say about Mistress
Malaprop:

	"She is now the matron saint of all those
	who go wordfowling with a blunderbuss."

This sounds like one of Sir Ernest Gowers contributions -- perhaps someone 
with a truly antient edition of Fowler could check to see if this statement
is there. Fowler laso says this about solecism:

	"The grammarians used to distinguish between *barbarism*,
	incorrectness in the use of words, and *solecism*, incorrectness
	in the construction of sentences."

						RABworm