9/3-9/9: Mala-What?!

Malapropisms -- isn't it ironic that the word to describe misheard words is so often mispronounced, misunderstood or otherwise mangled? Think of it as malapropos, the opposite of apropos...All those song lyrics you misheard, directions you misunderstood...Tell us your favorites. Remember the classic Jimi Hendrix hit, "Excuse me while I kiss this guy"? Share your dirty secrets and make the rest of us feel a little bit smarter.

Here's what Tripod members had to say:

Voards: Offspring: "Gotta get away from meat" instead of "Gotta get away from me"..."Donkey Kong" instead of "Dog eat dog"

dbblazer: Once when working with an unruly 9th grade class, I said (rather loudly), "Shit up and shut down!" Of course this immediately brought the class under control. They laughed at my expense, and we finally went on with the lesson.

meganc: During a canoe trip I was leading through the San Juan Islands in Washington, one of the kids had been silent for several minutes (quite a feat!). He finally looked up at the staff members with knitted brows, and said, "Perplex this for a minute...."

randyman: When my brother Scott and I were kids, we thought that the Creedence Clearwater Revival song "Bad Moon Rising" was about the nearby lavatory facilities and the perils of ignoring them: "Don't go out tonight, it's bound to take your life, there's a BATHROOM ON THE RIGHT." My parents, who were big CCR fans, were apparently too amused to ever correct us.

jmd: For some reason I can no longer recall, a friend and I were sitting on her pool deck discussing male, uh, failings. (Not that either of us had even seen a male success or failure at the time.) For some reason, I thought that the way you pronounced "impotent" was like "important" with a long o. From that day onward, Kris always took great pains to point out that someday, I'd be dealing with "matters of great impotence."

Mur: When I was talking to a friend he mentioned that a situation would become "aw-rhee" It took me about five minutes but i figured that he was saying "awry" but had never heard it spoken, and thought it was pronounced "aw-rhee."

KSConsidine: My boss was sharing a vacation story about her trip to the keys. She wanted to take an underwater picture with her waterproof camera; however she "couldn't get underwater because she was so flamboyant." And these are the people who keep us from rising to management?

pialoca: There is a famous S. Cal car salesman on t.v. Cal Worthington (and his dog spot). The "dog spot" that appeared with Cal changed from monkey, to lion to elephant from week to week. His theme song (so I thought until recently ) went as follows: "If you need a car or truck, Pussy Cow, Pussy Cow, Pussy Cow." The real words: "If you need a car or truck, go see Cal... Sounded good to me.

jmp7001: My friend recently told me that when he was a tyke and a big baseball fan, he thought the line in the national anthem that goes "gave proof through the night", actually went "Babe Ruth through the night". After all, it was the baseball song, right?

carolcross: I am a pharmacist and folks often mispronounce words. I had an elderly woman looking for an iron supplement ask for ferocious sulfate. Hey..it's in the cage on your left.....GRRRRR!

Daedalus: There's the old Eagles song called "Witchy Woman" with the line "raisen head and ruby lips, sparks fly from her fingertips"...

dbosley: While working in an office that dealt with loans for businesses and homes, we had one person in the office that always called farmers home loans, "homers farm loans. We would crack up every time he said it, but we were too amused to correct him. There are now people all over the state that think they have homers farm loans.

Amaranth01: In the new Def Leppard song, "Breathe a Sigh" there is a line where Joe Elliot swoons: "I more than long for your affection..." I thought he was singing "I'll mow the lawn for your affection." Shows where my priorities are these days....

RedLisa: Meretricious - My husband is involved in such a relationship with a woman.

accura: Many years ago upon first hearing a Kentucky Fried Chicken commercial, my mother was shocked to hear what she thought was "nigger licken good", instead of "finger licking good."

Xajia: Big ole Jet had a light on, sounds closer than Big ole Jet Airliner by Steve Miller

goddess1: As a kid, my daughter (now 20) LOVED the song "Cat Scratch Fever" -- but she was convinced that the words were actually: "Hot Cat Flavor"... Hmm, kind of scary considering that she's always had a cat for a pet..

ErnieH: I would write notes to my friends in high school, and until my senior year, I would always use the term "minus well" instead of "might as well." You know, like I minus well go to the party this weekend. Supposedly, my friends always found that funny but would never tell me until days before graduation. Some friends.

smiley: i used to think that the words to 'sunrise sunset' were 'is this the little girl i married' instead of 'is this the little girl i carried' and i was always so confused that a dad would marry his daughter and then sing about it. at my bat mitzvah, my dad and i danced to 'sunrise, sunset' and the whole time i was so confused and embarrrassed, but now i know.

toototallyterrific: One night when I was sixteen, I had to drive my mother home from a wine tasting festival. It was a rather foggy night, and when I turned on my blinker to turn into our driveway, the fog turned orange with every flash. My mother, who doesn't drink very often, said, "Oh, look!! It's an optical delusion!!"

ASegal: My 1st girlfriend used to think that Chicago's "What kind of man would I be" was actually "What kind of lamb would I be"

tipoftheday: There are so many of em' I don't know where to start!

jina: Here in New Orleans I see quite a few people with "fireball" and "electric lights" (fibroids and electrolytes). Do these also occur in other parts??

threep: Miss understood in a way... I work at a mexican restaurant, I told one of the mexican help one day that our broken down dustpan was a piece of shit, Two or three days later he came to me and asked me if I had seen the "piece of shit" thinking that that was what it was called in english.

HYPER_KNUCKLES: As a special education teacher, I often hear students complain about their life. One day a student was feeling sorry for himself, and just jokingly I said, "Do you have that poor me syndrome again?" Another student in my class said, "Isn't that PMS?"

RomHattrick: My wife's mother always said "do (whatever) and I won't take no Fornawser". She was an adult before she realized "no for an answer" was what was said. She always wondered what a fornanswer was.

threep: Oh I can see the magic between your thighs.... You've got Betty Davis thighs..

RomHattrick: We had a dog named Maxwell when Van Halen's "Jump" song came out. I thought they were saying "Maxwell Jump" and it was so cool to make the dog jump when the song was on. Later I found out it was "might as well jump" and was kinda embarrased

dmcneil: My wife and I both were in college in the late 60's. My wife got a chuckle out of my misunderstanding the term "right on!" to have been "right arm (since one raised their right arm). Then she admitted that she thought the phrase was "ride on"

ZuzuNorth: The Beatles song: "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" includes a line that says ". . . the girl with kaleidoscope eyes." Except,for those of us that hear funny, the line is ". . . the girl with colitis goes by."

RDTannenbaum: In first grade, I had a teacher whose last name was "de Villiers". She was unmarried - and I could never figure out why everyone called her "Mr Villiers" if she was female!

HempMan: Maybe this is totally wrong, but when you say your turning the air conditioner up, wouldn't it get warmer? I'm sorry, maybe I never should have brought that up. Sorry.

enewman: When you say it wrong, it's a malapropism, named after Mrs. Malaprop in the play _The Rivals_ by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. When you mishear a song lyric, it's not a malapropism, it's a mondegreen, a term coined by Sylvia Wright in the 1950s. She heard the lines �They hae slain the Earl of Murray / And laid him on the green� as reporting the death of Lady Mondegreen. Mondegreens have been getting some media attention in the last couple of years and there is a book of them out, called something like "Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy." Sorry I don't have a good one to contribute.

kpluck: A few years ago when the Queen visited New Zealand a radio announcer was commentating her arrival. In absolute seriousness he said: "As she walks past a group from such and such girls school they all give her three queers for the cheen"

WFrench: I used to think in Star Trek that they were saying "Delay that order" when they were really saying "Belay that order"