It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s amazing how long it takes for people to forget. That idea came to mind as I discussed the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Golden Days\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of Highlands with a friend who attended college in the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc60s.<\/p>\n
What impressed me the most was her recollection of the old Student Union Building, called the SUB, which should have been called the HUB, as it linked many departments and buildings and was the de facto center of the campus.<\/p>\n
Decades ago, the old SUB was supplanted by the Communication Arts Department, and for the last years of my career, I had an office and taught classes there. But this isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t so much about the building; rather, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about interesting people who \u00e2\u20ac\u0153lived\u00e2\u20ac\u009d there and led some of us to believe they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d become SUB-human.<\/p>\n
One such person, Rita, from Santa Fe, could have come straight out of a 1775 play, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Rivals,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by Richard Sheridan. Here he introduces a Mrs. Malaprop, who fails not only to find the correct word but also appears to seek out the wrong one.<\/p>\n
A malapropism, from the French, is simply the use of the wrong word, to great comic effect. Either the word is simply wrong, or is chosen because it sounds like the word we have in mind.<\/p>\n
Mrs. Malaprop is credited with \u00e2\u20ac\u0153She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s as headstrong as a allegory on the banks of the Nile\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (i.e., alligator); and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He is the very pineapple of politeness\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (i.e., pinnacle).<\/p>\n
But before I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d even heard the term malaprop, Rita managed to sprinkle them into a short conversation. She started by saying, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153My friends left me strangled here in the SUBway. You could have knocked me over with a fender.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Three comical misuses of words in two short sentences. Had my friend Rita ever read Sheridan? I never asked.<\/p>\n
The words \u00e2\u20ac\u0153strangled,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153SUBway\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fender\u00e2\u20ac\u009d all sound like what Rita must have had in mind, but she missed by a little.<\/p>\n
In previous columns, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve written about the habit of relying more on hearing than on reading, with the result that often we use the wrong word without knowing it or looking it up.<\/p>\n
To be sure, malapropisms make their way, with comic effect, into popular culture. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why script writers for The Sopranos inserted, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He was prostate with grief\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He tried to create a little dysentery among the ranks.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Did they mean \u00e2\u20ac\u0153prostrate\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153dissent\u00e2\u20ac\u009d?<\/p>\n
And a recording that spoofs an infomercial proves that a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153little knowledge is a dangerous thing\u00e2\u20ac\u009d when it alludes to a well-known poem by Coleridge, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d In this poem, a mariner who shoots an albatross, is doomed to wear the carcass of the bird around his neck.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Albatross\u00e2\u20ac\u009d now has become synonymous with a burden or excessive grief.<\/p>\n
The spoof reads, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got these two albacores around my neck,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like the Rime of the Ancient Marinade.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Headline writers, under deadline pressure, commit their own malapropisms even though the telescopic messages seem perfect at the time.<\/p>\n
One newspaper carried the headline: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Iraqi Head Seeks Arms.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Another classic came out this way: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Stiff opposition to casketless funerals.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d And there appeared \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Babies are what mothers eat,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Probation Chief Now Jails Boss,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Partial jury chosen for Tyson trial\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Jesse Jackson could have altered race, analysts say.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
In 1997, the Optic carried a Wal-Mart ad seeking a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153personal manager\u00e2\u20ac\u009d who \u00e2\u20ac\u0153must be computer illiterate.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
And just this week, did we ever make a typo! In an age of rapid communication, we get spoiled because of the ability to take an e-mail, for example, and convert it to type, almost instantly. Many of the submissions to the Optic come electronically. I can file this column from home, and with just a bit of tweaking at the office, have it set on the page, without the need to hand-carry or retype.<\/p>\n
Yet, some submissions don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t arrive electronically. Letters to the Optic editor, for example, often come typed, sent by snail mail, or hand-delivered.<\/p>\n
And we also receive hand-written letters whose hieroglpyhics leave us puzzled. Even the most sophisticated penmanship-recognition software struggles with the written script.<\/p>\n
So, a human often re-types what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been submitted in handwritten form. As a recent article in the Optic demonstrates, we modified a hand-written letter, but I contend it was purely a judgment call.<\/p>\n
Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what happened: A submitted article referred to a local anti-violence group, Somos Familia. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Familia\u00e2\u20ac\u009d looked like \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Tamales.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Just look at the similarity between the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153T\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153F\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as well as the series with \u00e2\u20ac\u0153m,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153l.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d We chose the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153tamales\u00e2\u20ac\u009d version.<\/p>\n
Some may have gotten steamed over the boo-boo. Nevertheless, I find it funny, unintentionally funny. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the kind of malapropism that appears on the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Headlines\u00e2\u20ac\u009d feature on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.<\/p>\n
But before anybody hollers, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hire a proofreader!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d let me present a positive aspect to our typo:<\/p>\n
Why would anybody object to the Tamales reference? It could be that, like the favorite Mexican food treat, some members of the Somos Familia organization got steamed up by this tamale error, as any good tamales would be.<\/p>\n
The late Thomas Oliver Mallory once said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153There are few problems that can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be minimized by the time you reach the bottom of a bowl of green chile.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Well, I would add to his injunction, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153or after one eats some good, well-steamed tamales \u00e2\u20ac\u201d husky, corny, beefy or porky.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Hmmm, that reference is making me hungry. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a pity that Rita\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s SUBway is no longer in business.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s amazing how long it takes for people to forget. That idea came to mind as I discussed the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Golden Days\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of Highlands with a friend who attended college in the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc60s. What impressed me the most was her recollection of the old Student Union Building, called the SUB, which should have been called the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}