Sayings (expressions, idioms, proverbs, quips, phrases, etc.) overheard that the speaker got wrong.

Be pacfic

I need to do this for my own insanity! Seriously. My friend and I laughed so hard. The woman who said it got pissed at us and told to mind our own business.

My mother was telling my father how badly the neighbor's wife brow beats her husband.

My six year old self thought she said "bra beating," and I reasoned that what with the hooks in the back of the bra, that must really hurt.

You misconscrewed what I said, OP.

"The could have fixed up that condo, but since they already bought the house, it's a mute point! "

You’re just ignanant!

I worked briefly under a real-life Mrs. Malaprop. I corrected her at least three times, which I'm sure didn't increase my favor in her eyes, but she was an insecure idiot to begin with.

The infamous Broadway producer Adela Holzer (born in Spain) is famous for her malapropisms. Supposedly the Googie Gomez character from Terrence McNally's THE RITZ was peppered win Holzer quotes.

"I am so dumps in the down!"

Some of them have become accepted (although not by me): Step foot in, butt naked.

People are always mixing up prostate and prostrate. It drives me nuts

Exactly r9

“Step foot in” — what ELSE would you step with !? It's “set foot in.”

“Butt naked” — so only the ass is exposed !?

“For all intensive purposes”

On another forum I used to frequent, a poster actually wrote that someone was acting like a " pre-Madonna."

R13. That is pretty funny.

My contribution to this thread is a mere mispronunciation.

A coworker was always quick to point out that something had gone awry. She pronounced it AAW-ree and no one had the heart to correct her. (But we did have the heart to laugh at her behind her back - assholes that we were.)

Had a coworker who referred to any and all crying as "crocodile tears." Had no idea why she thought everyone was fake crying until I realized she didn't know what the phrase meant.

Actually what I’m a go ahead and do is. ..ghetto Partially due to the fact that the incident and hand was such that... ghetto I do apologize .. ghetto

R17 Ghetto people always do this. They add words and phrases that don’t exist or shouldn’t be there to make themselves sound smarter. The fact is they watch too much court tv.

R17 ‘I do apologize’ is fucking ghetto.

[quote] I need to do this for my own insanity!

Did she get pissed at you because you laughed at her story or because you recognized her malapropism?

A buddy of mine used to think that “S/he blew me off” had purely sexual connotations and kinda freaked out when someone said it in front of his parents one time.

Several employees sit at the same desk, but the 1st shift guy thinks it's his and we are just visitors. Today he had a homemade sign propped-up that said, "Any people who want to knack at my desk please clean your mess up!".

I've seen several other of his writings where he gets simple words wrong.

Just desserts

"Extend a fig leaf" instead of "extend an olive branch." That's one of my personal flubs.

R24 That is an interesting flub. Some kind of Freudian slip? 🙂

Could be, R25.

R23 To be fair, that is a trickier one since in this case “deserts” and “desserts” are pronounced alike. Using “desserts” it seems similar to “let them eat cake”. Really interesting.

I have absolutely no ideal.

I had a teacher in 12th grade for a class called "World Cultures" who was a hilarious one for malaprops. He loved to say, "Wake up and smell the roses!" about anyone whom he thought was deluded. His favorite phrase of all was "In lieu of," which he thought meant the same thing as "In view of": e.g. "In lieu of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, what do you think of Lenin's ideas about the ultimate destiny of communism?"

He had no business being a teacher, but the school kept him on because he was a very successful hockey coach. He was fiercely anti-communism, and made us talk constantly about the former Soviet Union and how bad he thought it was. During class, he used to walk out of class all the time when he had us working on an assignment, and once someone followed him out to the parking lot to see him drinking whiskey in his car.

I once worked with someone who thought the phrase was "being that said," and she would use it repeatedly when speaking during staff meetings.

“Unquote” it’s end quote or close quote. U can’t un quote anything. Major network news anchors say this a lot.

Surely the most common one in recent years is ‘I could care less’. Which in its broken form means exactly the opposite of what stupid people want it to mean.

“For a change of paste” - I kept thinking, “No, she isn’t saying, ‘paste’” but then I heard her say it again when I sat in on a meeting with her. Then as we were leaving I heard someone ask, “Did she say, ‘change of paste’”?

It's a moo point!

"supposably"

R32 I think you can say, “I could care less” but it needs to be said in a sarcastic manner (I always imagine Chandler Bing on Friends saying it this way).

It’s six and one, half a dozen of the other.

It’s a doggy dog world.

(I actually read this in a newspaper.)

R38 That is kind of cute.

It's a mute point

I'm on tender hooks

Ugh, mute point sounds so stupid.

“Taken aback” has become “taken back.”

“A shambles” has become “shambles.”

“Bald face liar” has become “bold face liar.”

R36, I’m sure you know that the term is ‘I couldn’t care less’. And that’s the meaning people want. I’ve never heard anyone with a brain say ‘I could care less’, even if they heavily emphasised the ‘could’ with a tiny pause after the word. If it’s actually something that started on Friends, that’s just another reason to hate the show.

r41 Shouldn't it be bald-FACED liar?

r15 There's an ENTIRE EPISODE of "That Girl" based on exactly that same issue. (Ann's father pronounces is "AW-ree.")

I once had someone tell me that it was sexual harassment to use the expression "more bang for the buck."

Here on DL, someone used "post meridian" for PM. It is actually post MERIDIEM.

A "world wind" romance.

It’s a doggy-dog world!

Nip it in the butt - which admittedly invites all kinds of humorous mental pictures.

I had a high school Economics teacher who would say "irregardless", bringing the word full circle to actually mean WITH regard. Hated that fucking moron.

When I was in grad school, we grad students taught composition. One of my colleagues got a paper in which the student informed him that "It's a doggie dog world."

Missed your post obviously, r48.

Can we please declare a moratorium on "doggie dog" mentions? Enough, already.

I had an idiot friend who would say "haunty" instead of haughty. She said it a lot, too. Eventually distanced myself from her because she made so many bad life choices. Last I saw her was with an older man about whom she proudly declared, "I used to babysit his children!"

I don’t think I can hear the difference between mute point and moot point in conversation. Pretty sure I would just assume moot point.

Oldtimers' Disease

I've heard "staunch" pronounced "stauch," as in "We're stauch Baptists."

Sounded like "ow" with an st at the front and and ch at the back.

Mute = Myoot.

Moot = Moot.

The office manager at my last job would say "asterical" instead of "hysterical". She would get angry and defensive when someone pointed it out. I never understood it because other than that she was smart and articulate.

R59 as long as she doesn’t become icterical, you’re ok

I frequently hear the phrase "chomping at the bit," when the actual phrase is "champing at the bit."

grave detail

excrutiating

People saying - He’s on the wagon, when they mean - He’s off the wagon or He fell off the wagon.

People saying - He’s on the wagon, when they mean - He’s off the wagon or He fell off the wagon.

Laxadaisical.