“Misunderestimated.” What are your favorite wonderful linguistic disasters?

[Aswan]

Dubya’s classic verbal gaffe “misunderestimated” has successfully entered the national idiom. I hope Sarah Palin’s recent “refudiated” is likewise so honored.

While it was merely a humorous fluke, Mike Tyson’s "I guess I'm gonna fade into Bolivian" was beautiful in so many ways.

What English calamities still make you laugh?

[etv78]

Roger Clemens' claim that Mcnamee "misremembered".

[Leaffan]

A baseball commentator's comment about a player unable to speak Mexican.

[Paintcharge]

Roger Clemens' claim that Mcnamee "misremembered".

Off topic, but that just looks like some screenwriter got lazy coming up with a character's name.

What should we call this guy? Oh I dunno..how about Joe Namey McName, no wait I've got it! McName-e.

[Skammer]

I'll always remember my former co-worker, who after sending a particularly unintelligible email followed up with another one apologizing for the "confusement" it caused.

[WordMan]

Didn't Warren Harding mis-choose/invent the now-accepted word "normalcy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalcy)"? (wiki link)

[tdn]

What are we conversating about again?

[pravnik]

I once saw an unintentionally hilarious federal trial stemming from a lawsuit filed against the state by a prison inmate acting pro se, in which the inmate referred to those making allegations against him as the "alligators."

[Earl Snake-Hips Tucker]

I once saw an unintentionally hilarious federal trial stemming from a lawsuit filed against the state by a prison inmate acting pro se, in which the inmate referred to those making allegations against him as the "alligators."While that might have happened in real life, that actually was in an old "Amos 'n' Andy" episode. I think Calhoun might have said it "I deny the allegations, and I resent the allegator!" I have always vowed that if I ever ended up in court and was asked how I responded to the allegations, that would be my response.

[carm]

There's tons of good ones from the football (soccer) world:

Kevin Keegan: "The referee was vertically ten yards away"

Ron Atkinson: "The Spaniards have been reduced to aiming aimless balls into the box"

Ron Atkinson again: "Well, Clive, it's all about the two M's - movement and positioning"

Gerry Francis: "What I said to them at half time would be unprintable on the radio"

Alan Parry: "And Ritchie has now scored eleven goals, exactly double the number he scored last season"

Bobby Robson: "We didn't underestimate them, they were just a lot better than we thought"

I once saw an unintentionally hilarious federal trial stemming from a lawsuit filed against the state by a prison inmate acting pro se, in which the inmate referred to those making allegations against him as the "alligators."While that might have happened in real life, that actually was in an old "Amos 'n' Andy" episode. I think Calhoun might have said it "I deny the allegations, and I resent the allegator!" I have always vowed that if I ever ended up in court and was asked how I responded to the allegations, that would be my response.


Ha, this reminds me of one of my all-time favourites:

Ron Saunders: "Allegations are all very well, but I would like to know who these alligators are!"

[Shark Sandwich]

Not quite the same thing, but last week on The Soup, they showed Shia LaBeouf mispronounce the word "epitome" as ep-i-tome.

[Chicagojeff]

Charles Shackleford.. power forward for the North Carolina State Wolfpack on being complimented for his ability to go left and right replied, "I'm Amphibious"...

[imfloating]

A tour guide in Italy was telling us about how things used to be in ancient Rome
and askd us to "try to imaginate."
Another tour guide in Greece, while telling a hypothetical story, said, "it's just a suppose."

[thirdwarning]

It's new to me, but I'm kind of fond of 'insinuendo'.

[matt_mcl]

Roger Clemens' claim that Mcnamee "misremembered".

According to the Random House, the verb "misremember" has been around since the 1500s.

[astorian]

How about Barack Obama calling a Navy medic a "corpse man"?

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/02/04/obama_mispronounces_corpsman_at_prayer_breakfast.html





Or the time he said he was a fan of the Penn State "Nittaly" Lions?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQLTekcur-E

[BigT]

Not quite the same thing, but last week on The Soup, they showed Shia LaBeouf mispronounce the word "epitome" as ep-i-tome.

I feel sorry for him, because I do the same thing with hyperbole. I mean, I know the correct pronunciation, but I learned the word in print first.

And I've always thought it weird that I also learned epitome from print first, but have successfully migrated to the proper pronunciation.

[ThePylon]

I'll always remember my former co-worker, who after sending a particularly unintelligible email followed up with another one apologizing for the "confusement" it caused.

This should be a word! A combination of confusion and amusement. Perfectly cromulent to me!

[MunkaMike]

Someone at work told me she was bleeding " profusciously". This was twice as funny due to the size of her cut.

[EvilTOJ]

I use the term 'strategery' intentionally. stra-TEE-jury.

[Ignatz]

My older brother telling me about his "prostrate" medicine making him faint dead away. I guess it worked.

[Rubik]

'God' with a capital, as if he's on the national register or something.

No fixed abode.

[An Gadaí]

Didn't Warren Harding mis-choose/invent the now-accepted word "normalcy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalcy)"? (wiki link)

Huh? Your cite says " Although detractors believed that the word was a neologism as well as a malapropism coined by Harding (as opposed to the more accepted term normality), there was contemporary discussion and evidence found that normalcy had been listed in dictionaries as far back as 1857."

I had never heard that word until after 9/11. I thought then it was a neologism :D .

[Leaper]

Didn't Warren Harding mis-choose/invent the now-accepted word "normalcy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalcy)"? (wiki link)

Huh? Your cite says " Although detractors believed that the word was a neologism as well as a malapropism coined by Harding (as opposed to the more accepted term normality), there was contemporary discussion and evidence found that normalcy had been listed in dictionaries as far back as 1857."


*looks at first poster's username*

Goddammit, I don't care that "irony" doesn't mean what we want it to mean. I want to redefine it just so we can apply it to situations like this! :D

[astorian]

'God' with a capital, as if he's on the national register or something.

No fixed abode.

Even if you believe God is a fictional character, don't you capitalize the proper names of fictional characters? Do you refuse to capitalize Zeus or Thor?

[Rubik]

Well, a 'god' is an all-powerful deity, I dunno where we got this frigging Judeo-Christian-Islamic notion that there's only one god and he's called 'God'.

Kinda cheeky really, would be like my parents naming me 'Son'.

[RalfCoder]

I use the term 'strategery' intentionally. stra-TEE-jury.

I've done that too.

I've "dis-understood" people before.

When my son was in the high school marching band, he used to play the disphonium. (Which pretty well described how he played, at least for the first couple of weeks)

When working on a project, I've "guesstimated" the cost, amount of supplies, and time required - usually way low, too.

I help my wife in the kitchen by loading and unloading the "washdisher".

There are more of these, I'm sure, but I disremember them at the moment.

[Leaper]

I use the term 'strategery' intentionally. stra-TEE-jury.

Hmm. Does it count as a "linguistic disaster" if it was deliberately written to be one for humor? :)

[Eggerhaus]

I once heard a physician use the phrase "...for all intensive purposes...":smack:

[Truman Burbank]

I hate that one. I find it really flusterating!