A time to upset the apple tart and preserve disorder

Country Living with Francis Farragher

At times, whether it be the written or spoken word, we’ve all had our faux pas with phrases or utterances, that often just don’t come out right.

Some of our holiday locations over the years might have been exotic but not erotic as expressed through a slip of the tongue while occasionally there have been pigments of the imagination rather than figments.

In the past, one of our former Taoisigh, Bertie Ahern warned of ‘upsetting the apple tart’ rather than the apple cart and when these little slip-ups happen inadvertently, they tend not to be forgotten.

Malapropisms can be embarrassingly funny and the name for using the wrong word with the right sound, derives from the Richard Brinsley Sheridan play ‘The Rivals’ where a woman by the name of Mrs. Malaprop specialised in ‘putting her foot in it’ every time she opened her mouth.

During the course of her contributions she managed to ‘illiterate’ [obliterate] people from her memory; she described an obstinate woman as being as headstrong as an allegory [alligator] on the Nile; she ‘exploded’ illicit affairs rather than exposed them and she dissolved many mysteries rather instead of resolving them.

There are more local ones too that often escape into mid-air but those with sound hearing and good memories store them up for future dissertation.

In one case, a man well versed in the licensed trade, was taken aback recently when told that one of his best customers was embarking on a journey to a faraway town for a ‘choir practice’.

The seasoned publican was taken aback somewhat at his customer’s previously ‘hidden talent’ and ventured a compliment. “Well fair play to ya, I never knew that you had a good singing voice – we’ll have to get you singing in our own church.”

The reply was swift and to the point. “What the hell is wrong with you – I’m off to a choir practice (chiropractor) with my back that’s been at me for the last six months.”

We’ve also come across the cases of ‘one summer never making a swallow’ or ‘two stones being killed with the one bird’ while at other times ‘a bird in the bush is worth two in the hand’.

A first cousin of the malapropism is a spoonerism, where a word that sounds like another is erroneously used. When this happens, ‘the dear old queen’ turns into ‘the queer old dean’; the ‘missed bus’ turns into the ‘hissed bus’ while an opponent can be the recipient of a ‘blushing crow’ rather than a ‘crushing blow’.

The origins of the rather unusual ‘spoonerism’ word comes from an academic English clergyman of the late 1800s and early 1900s, called the Reverend William Spooner, whose title was ‘Warden of the New College of Oxford’.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.