Wednesday, May 8, 2019

Malapropism

It was Pirate Day recently for my great-grandchildren, and their mother wrote:
"These cute buccaneers are treasure hunting and using every pirate slang term we know!  Now back to swapping the deck!"
There's a malapropism in that last sentence.  The word is derived from Mrs. Malaprop, a character in Richard Sheridan's 1775 play The Rivals, who was noted for her misapplication of words.  So what word did their mother mix up?  She swapped a word.  Sailors swab the deck, with no swapping involved.  To "swab the deck" means to mop it, like the cartoon characters in these two illustrations.

Would you like to color a cartoon pirate swabbing the deck?

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