Of Architects and Serengeti

I find words inspirational. I really enjoy expanding my vocabulary, learning the meanings of new words, and playing with words. But—please tell me it’s not just me—sometimes the word I want to say, the word I plan to say, the word I think I am saying, comes out as an entirely different word (or words) altogether. As my dad would say, I get my “tang tungled.”

This can result in embarrassment, but typically just produces a great deal of laughter, like the time I was about to snap a pic of my girls in a restaurant (some of my best photos are in restaurants) and instead of “smile,”’or “say cheese,” or whatever I intended to come out of my mouth, what actually came out was, “love you, bye!” This is my standard end-of-phonecall signoff with them. My girls burst out laughing, which made for a fantastic, crazy pic! But seriously, who knows why I said that! 

We had a preacher who once said, “the trouble with kids today is overproductive parents.” He quickly corrected himself to say “overprotective,” but the original statement kind of sticks with you. For at least 40 years, apparently. I actually think he may have said it on purpose to get our attention. And it worked! After a beat or two the whole congregation cracked up! I don’t actually remember the rest of the sermon, but I assume it was about parenting, and I was just a college kid so I probably didn’t listen past that memorable malapropism.

It’s not just mispronunciation, it’s using a wrong, but similar-sounding word, which often makes for a hilarious sentence. It’s been happening for centuries and is called a malapropism after a character named Mrs. Malaprop in the 1775 play, The Rivals. Isn’t that nuts? This character’s humor comes from using the wrong words, such as “She’s as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile” (instead of alligator). Allegories aren’t even native to Egypt (wink wink). There are lots of ways to get things wrong, and sometimes the speaker doesn’t even know the correct word. Generally, though, I think it’s just a slip of the tongue. Like saying, “The flood damage was so bad they had to evaporate the city,” or “I hope at least I win the constellation prize.” Perfectly good words gone wrong! Although a constellation would be an epic prize, right? And evaporating the city should solve the flooding, at the least.

I think every bride- and groom-to-be should watch the YouTube video where the groom hilariously gets his words tangled and comes up with a malapropism. Hopefully it’s not also a Freudian slip (which adds, to the unintentional error in wording, the possibility of inadvertently revealed subconscious feelings). Instead of “lawfully” he starts to say,  “I take you to be my waffley wedded wife.” He laughs and runs with it, saying he also takes her as his pancakey wife. His bride chuckles, then giggles, then completely loses it, along with everyone there! Now that’s good entertainment, and probably will make future grooms who watch it totally paranoid. I sent it to my son-in-law before he married my daughter. It would have fit right in with their ceremony, which featured “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” from The Lion King, complete with the groomsmen “boo-hooing” along with Timon and Pumba. But they had a lovely, sweet wedding. And I’m sure the couple in the video had a nice wedding, too, once they all got their laughter under control. Here’s a link to it if you want to watch it. I don’t get anything if you click the link, I just think it’s ridiculously funny, so wanted to share it: https://www.flixxy.com/wedding-ceremony.htm

There are other word faux pas of a little different kind. If you grew up with siblings, chances are your parents at least occasionally ran through all the kids before getting to your name. I’m the baby of the family, so I answered to “PatJimPhyllBeck.” As my husband likes to say, at least the names are always those of loved ones. I’m guilty of doing the same to my kids—but my younger daughter never lets me forget that she was regularly called “Fluffy”—the name of our cat who was very—you guessed it—fluffy, and beloved as one of the family. My apologies, dear daughter! 

My grandmother Ethel died before I was born, but by the time I came along my granddad had married another Ethel, which I thought was brilliant of him. No getting names mixed up at awkward times for him!

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Some unsuspecting words that are used in lieu of the correct ones become part of our family memories and vocabulary (or maybe “glossary” would be a more appropriate term), hence the title of this post. If my daughter says she’s having architects for dinner, I won’t be expecting ladies or gentlemen with blueprints. I once inadvertently said architects when I was talking about artichokes, and now there’s no going back.

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Of course sometimes our food gets pet names just because—like “spare guys” (asparagus). I don’t even remember what inspired that one, but it’s not all that unusual for us to have architects or spare guys for dinner. 

The latest word misadventure was my husband’s. Recently he was talking about something that was a serendipity (one of my favorite words, by the way) and it came out as serengeti. And serengeti it will always be for me now. Although maybe I’m too hasty in my response. I may actually get over that one, because I do love the word serendipity and I’d hate to rip that page out of the family dictionary.

Do you have family jargon that has come from malapropisms? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

If words inspire you like they do me, I leave you with this not-so-Irish blessing: May your architects always be savory, your guys be lovely and spare, and your days be sprinkled with serengeti!