| “She's as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile” and “He is the very pineapple of politeness” are two of the statements from the mouth of Mrs. Malaprop that helped her name become synonymous with ludicrous misuse of language. Mrs. Malaprop, a character in Richard Brinsley Sheridan's play The Rivals, produced in 1775, consistently uses language malapropos, that is, inappropriately. The word malapropos comes from the French phrase mal à propos, made up of mal, “badly,” à, “to,” and propos, “purpose, subject,” and literally means “badly to the purpose,” or “inappropriate.” The Rivals was a popular play, and Mrs. Malaprop became enshrined in a common noun, first in the form malaprop and later in malapropism, which is first recorded in 1849. Perhaps that is what Mrs. Malaprop feared when she said “An aspersion upon my parts of speech” and “If I reprehend any thing in this world, it is the use of my oracular tongue, and a nice derangement of epitaphs!” |
