Is there a word to describe what a friend of mine does? He constantly uses the wrong word, which sounds very much like the right word. He’s a college educated fellow who is quite successful in business (his checkbook makes mine look like a wastrel on a life raft).
And when he proffers these wrong words is usually when he’s thinking big thoughts. That’s something I like about him - he has these big thoughts, that he offers up. Observations about life, human interaction, etc. Sometimes good thoughts, sometimes, whoops, Mike, let me get ya another drink…
So, when he uses the wrong word it is usually a polysyllabic antonym, or near-to, and I get the gist of his message.
Maybe if you gave us some examples we could put this puppy to bed. Is it like comedian Norm Crosby, who speaks from his ‘diagram’ and drinks ‘decapitated’ coffee? He is known as the “King of the Malaprop”.
Spoonerism is mixing up the sounds in the words–“Mardon me, padam, this pie is occupewed. May i sew you to a sheet?” That’s a spoonerism.
Malapropism is right. In high school, a friend of mine was in our production of “The Rivals.” She was Mrs. Malaprop, who mentioned such things as “The allegories on the Nile.”
(My personal favorite malapropism was a former landlord who told me he was once neighbors with a symphony repercussionist.)