S/O of "heathener" thread - other malapropisms or mistatements you've heard

[DarlaS]

Now amazon has gone and changed the perfectly good "Gift Idea List" to "Friends and Family Gifting". :thumbdown:

 

Boo amazon! :glare:

[Violet Crown]

Happy birthday, thread!

:party:

[Isabella]

My MIL has many...but the ones that I hear most regularly, and that grate on my nerves the most are 'ungion' for onion, and 'ordaments' for ornaments.

[AndyJoy]

One of my Facebook friends posts errors regularly. My favorite is that she posted that she needed to "run some erins".

 

My 3-year-old gets confused and thinks we're visiting his friend Aaron when he hears me say I need to run an errand, but I promise I enunciate and it's just his problem!

[Brilliant]

Here are a couple of gems from a receptionist in my sister's office:

"He's incognito" (meaning incommunicado)

or

"I can't tell you per se" when she meant simply "I don't know!"

 

And some of my other favorites:

"That's all water under the bridge over troubled waters"

"Six dozen of one or half of the other"

"Is his preaching topical or suppository?" (meaning expository!)

[ktgrok]

my mom says "great shakes alive" instead of great SAKES alive. As in "goodness, gracious, great sakes alive!" I don't correct her becauase, really, neither makes sense anyway.

[Scarlett]

I used to translate for my idiom-challenged boss in staff meetings.

 

"We're trying to keep this whole department from going to hell in a handbag"

<ahem, "handbasket">

 

"I know I'm b!tching at the chorus here, but..."

< :blink: ... ... "oh! 'Preaching to the choir!'">

That was my favorite. :D

 

I know this thread is over a year old, but the above bolded has become a favorite here in my house. We actually now say it instead of the correct idiom...if someone overhears us they will think we are insane.

 

Makes us laugh every time.

[cloversandlions]

My uncle doesn't take shortcuts - he takes nearcuts.

[CyndiLJ]

My mother insists it's prostrate cancer. It raises an interesting mental image. She will not be corrected.

 

 

 

This is the one that drives me nuts when I hear it. We have a long time friend who recently asked if I had any "Ibupropen". My hubby and I chuckled over that one for quite awhile.

 

Having kids from other countries learning English has helped us have some really fun times with words. One daughter truthfully thought we were gnawing on some "beef turkey", which was made all the more hilarious after she was "correcting" her older sister who had just asked if jerky grew on trees. :lol:

 

My son at 13 still says "Crayon" as "crown".

 

The other day my hubby was ordering at Taco Bell and every.single.time. he orders a Taco Freshca instead of Taco Fresco. He almost never gets things like that wrong, but for some reason that has stuck in his head and he can't get rid of it. The minute it pops out we both laugh.

 

Cindy

[Cafdog]

When my daughter was small, I had some trouble understanding her one day. She was getting pretty frustrated by the time I finally figured out what she was asking for. I said "Sorry, mommy's pretty slow on the uptake today."

 

She said "Yeah, mommy, you're pretty slow on the CUPCAKE." We say this all the time now in our house.

 

I figured the pro-cupcakers here would understand.

Edited October 25, 2012 by Cafdog
apostrophe abuse

[Danestress]

My son tried to explain to his kindergarten teacher that at his Anglican church, people eat the bread and then drink from the "Cup of Salivation." She was pretty amused.

[Word Nerd]

I've heard "get your goat" instead of "get your goad." I'm like "What goat? I don't have a goat."

 

I know I'm posting on an old thread, but "get your goat" is the right expression. More here and on the Eggcorn Forum here.

[Lisa in Jax]

"Mammeogram" for mammogram (It makes a copy of the br**st scan...)

 

"Intendo" for Nintendo (the game you *mean* to play, but just never get around to it...)

 

"Prostrate" for prostate (Don't take it lying down!)

 

"All-heimer's" for Alzheimer's (Everyone gets it!)

 

"Pa-luminary" for pulmonary (Lung docs are bright!)

 

"Evasive" (surgery) for invasive (It's the surgery that can't be pinned down.)

 

:lol::lol::lol::lol:

[dangermom]

One that has always stuck with me and my husband was when we went to a friend's wedding out of state. Her dad was a really nice guy and we were all talking.... At one point he said that something was ubiquitous, but he pronounced it you-bi-QUISH-ous. Every once in a while we grin and say that something is you-bi-QUISH-ous.

[Hen]

To this day, I still say Polar sausage instead of polish sausage. I have a hard time trying to switch. I don't want to know what meat might compose 'polar sausage'!

 

 

 

My dad has a major old time Southside Chicago accent and his parents spoke broken English, so my sister and I have picked up a bunch of stuff from him as well. It's weirder coming from us though since we don't live in the same areas he did growing up and lots of people don't have that accent anymore.

 

I come home, walk though my gangway into my house and open the light in my frunchroom. youse guys got a frunchroom in your house, am I right? :lol:

 

I don't know where my family got it, but our living room was the fertch-room. My sister and I always called it that growing up. One day, in Jr. High, I suggested to my group of friends that we all go to the fertch-room..and as it left my mouth, and the split second before I got weird stares, I realized it must be "front room". My parents are both from ca, so I don't know where that came from. We also called grilled-cheese "girl- cheese" I still call it that out of fond memory. :)

Edited October 26, 2012 by Hen Jen

[Tammi K]

My daughter was know for mixing things up. When she was little she told me she had an ache in her pyramid.???? Her temple - she had a headache.

 

When she was 16 she watched me play a card game and said, I see what you do, you match up the coats.

What????

Oh, my mistake. I mean the jackets.

No, you mean the SUITS!

[NittanyJen]

Okay I have two, one cute, one very politically incorrect :Angel_anim:

 

My nephew apparently sees a lot of Amazon boxes arrive at his house. At Christmas he unwrapped a box, and exclaimed, "ALL RIGHT!! I GOT AN AMAZE-ON!"

 

I had a very (very) elderly great-great aunt when I was quite young. Whenever she was crocheting, if you asked her what she was making, she'd give you a big smile and announce, "I'm making an African!" <afghan>

[NittanyJen]

My father never understood the song in Sunday School: "Jesus lives me, the Sino."

 

 

My friend's mother is French. She proudly proclaimed her rural status one time, declaiming, "We're now just a couple of country pumpkins!"

[NittanyJen]

This thread is hysterical! I am adding bellignorant and flustrated to my vocabulary.

 

Take it for granite - that one always gets me.

 

Lymes Disease instead of Lyme Disease is nails on the chalkboard, but I understand the mistake.

 

When my kiddo stopped saying "pee-na-no" for piano, I actually noted it on the calendar. So sad to see that one go.

 

I'm having fun now.

 

I had a neighbor who called everyone "an iggernit pig!"

 

I still miss my younger DS calling pajamas "Jomamas." That was my all time favorite. Second was "Hammerman Minkin" for 'Abraham Lincoln.'

[AndyJoy]

My daughter was know for mixing things up. When she was little she told me she had an ache in her pyramid.???? Her temple - she had a headache.

 

When she was 16 she watched me play a card game and said, I see what you do, you match up the coats.

What????

Oh, my mistake. I mean the jackets.

No, you mean the SUITS!

 

:lol:

 

This reminds me--I had a friend with the last name Slaughter. One of her classmates kept getting confused and saying her last name was Butcher.:D

[AndyJoy]

When we had pizza the other day DH and DS were discussing the fact that there were two kinds of cheese on it--mozzarella and Parmesan cheese. DS's version of Parmesean is "poor John's cheese.":001_smile:

[Alenee]

So when you play pool (billiards) and you totally miss a great shot, you say, "Choke!" Dh and I had a pool table and would say, "Choke-a-rama!" when we'd miss a shot. Dd, 3 yo at the time heard it and would say, "Choke-a-gram-ma!" :lol: Our poor mothers!

[lamppost]

I've got a few- first 2 I saw typed on teh internets, last one was in person.

 

1. Putting someone on a "pedal-stool"

2. There was a "hick-up" that affected a payment being processed

3. Misled used correctly but pronounced "MY-zled".

[NittanyJen]

My MIL loves humiliating my husband by telling about how proud he was to bring home his first 'holly bibble!'

[Ipsey]

My father never understood the song in Sunday School: "Jesus lives me, the Sino."

 

 

My husband's former boss was baffled when he heard his son singing, "Oh, how I love cheese sauce." (Jesus)

 

Mmm, I love cheese sauce too!

[scubamama]

I had a patient tell me that he took "them peanut butter balls" for his epilepsy one time...and another elderly lady trying to explain a mysterious illness called "Smile Almighty Jesus" (in heavy Southern accent) I was mystified for awhile. Later I realized she meant Spinal Meningitis!

 

I still :lol: over those two!

[Outinthegarden]

I made home made cinnamon rolls one day - when my dh came home my son met him at the door and replied, oh daddy, you have to try mommies cement rolls - they are delicious! Still haven't lived that one down.:lol:

 

Another one: visiting family back home (pittsburgh) out to eat with my cousins and one of them asks me "so, do you still like the steelers?" My 6 year old dd gasps and says in serious voice: "WHAT! stealers?? MY mommy would NEVER steal anything!!" Football season has a new meaning for us now.:D

[LaxMom]

My husband's former boss was baffled when he heard his son singing, "Oh, how I love cheese sauce." (Jesus)

 

Mmm, I love cheese sauce too!

 

Cheese sauce loves you, too. This, I know.

[justLisa]

The one we still laugh over is when DS was listening to Go Tell it on the Mountain.

 

"and cheese and rice and corn."

 

(Jesus Christ is born)

[Momma H]

Some of our family favorites are mostly from my mom. She calls costumes costrumes. She calls the store Uwajimaya (prohounced WaJaMaiYa) Oojiyama--she always has. Now I live in Missouri and we have a lot of Amish, she calls the A-Mish (long A).

Others that are fun and now part of our vocabuluary are beebop for bellybutton, gabee for garbage, ert for dessert and wawu for water. Kids are fun!

[cloversandlions]

Dh arrived home one evening while the kids were watching a movie on HBO. "Oh, is this that movie 'Twisted?', he asked. I laughed so hard - they were watching the movie 'Tangled' but it always be 'Twisted' to me now. :D

 

Similar to one someone shared earlier, when my dd's friend was little, she said "frubblestrated" for frustrated.

 

When dd was little, she called ketchup "check-up"; she knows how to say it properly now, but the rest of us never do - it'll always be check-up for us. ;).

[tagglelim]

My personal favorite:

 

Whenever my MIL is happy about something, she always responds with, "Oh! I am so exciting!!!"

[Alphabetika]

:lol: My FIL says that all the time, as well as Warshington.

And "warsher and dryer". I think it's hilarious. :D

 

 

My dad talked like this (warsh, etc.) as well. He said it was a Western PA thing.

 

Once I was waiting for my order at a restaurant that was famous for its fish tacos. I heard the counter person telling a customer:

 

"The tacos are made with a mild Polack fish."

 

That's right, people. Instead of saying "pollock," she used the derogatory term for Polish people.

 

Note: I'm Polish and was not offended. I thought it was hilarious.

Edited October 27, 2012 by Alphabetika

[Alphabetika]

I'm having fun now.

 

I had a neighbor who called everyone "an iggernit pig!"

 

I still miss my younger DS calling pajamas "Jomamas." That was my all time favorite. Second was "Hammerman Minkin" for 'Abraham Lincoln.'

 

My oldest dd called him Habercram Clinkin! We still do.

[Catherine]

This makes me think of the line in O Brother Where Art Thou when the cousin says his wife "R-U-N-N-O-F-T!"

[Catherine]

20+ years later, my dh still can laugh at the patient who once told him that she had "fireballs in her eucharist" LOLOLOL. She meant fibroids in her uterus.

[Melissa in Australia]

my mom says "great shakes alive" instead of great SAKES alive. As in "goodness, gracious, great sakes alive!" I don't correct her becauase, really, neither makes sense anyway.

I always thought it was great snakes alive! :001_smile:

[K&Rs Mom]

When we had pizza the other day DH and DS were discussing the fact that there were two kinds of cheese on it--mozzarella and Parmesan cheese. DS's version of Parmesean is "poor John's cheese.":001_smile:

 

When now-10yo dd was little, she thought it was "Farmer John's cheese" - like we had to get it from that one particular guy.... :lol:

[teachermom2834]

One I've seen online multiple times is "taken for granite" in place of "taken for granted". So much so that I've wondered if I've had it wrong all along. :confused:

[Parrothead]

Dd had a few of those:

hey-mums were M&Ms

bipits were biscuits

[pfamilygal]

My grandma, who was a nurse, used to say we needed some "antitibotics."

 

She also called it spaghettuh and ravuhohluh.

 

My ex SIL types "bonified" and "walla!" all the time (bone fide and voila!)

 

My husband says supposably and simular.

[Susan in KY]

"Mammeogram" for mammogram (It makes a copy of the br**st scan...)

 

"Intendo" for Nintendo (the game you *mean* to play, but just never get around to it...)

 

"Prostrate" for prostate (Don't take it lying down!)

 

"All-heimer's" for Alzheimer's (Everyone gets it!)

 

"Pa-luminary" for pulmonary (Lung docs are bright!)

 

"Evasive" (surgery) for invasive (It's the surgery that can't be pinned down.)

 

:lol::lol::lol::lol:

 

Here in KY it's All-timers disease. :)

[Pixjen]

My Dd had a hard time with magazine and escalator. It was always "maz-er-een" and "esclavator." And for the longest time, the bad guys on tv/movies were called "BooYuckies." That's because whenever we saw them she would yell out, "Boooo! Yucky!" :lol: