What on earth is a bienapropism?? Richard Lederer says that “The best malapropisms are those that leap across the chasm of absurdity and land on the side of truth” and dubs them bienapropisms, in the spirit of the French roots. My interpretation? Bien (good) + appropriate + malapropism = lots of fun!! Here are some examples, again from Anguished English. Read ’em and weep.
- The cookbook is being compiled. Please submit your favorite recipe and a short antidote concerning it.
- We sold our house and moved into one of those pandemoniums.
- To be a leader, you have to develop a spear de corps.
- Senators are chosen as committee chairmen on the basis of senility.
- The hills were worn down by eroticism.
- Apartheid is a pigment of the imagination.
- Certainly the pleasures of youth are great, but they are nothing compared to the pleasures of adultery.
- The defendant pleaded exterminating circumstances.
- Finally, this one that we’ve used for fun in our family for years: It’s a fragment of your imagination.
Happy Tuesday!
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