Thanks for that addition.

One of the most extraordinary malapropisms I have come across was the use of Ancient Regime(for Ancien Regime) throughout a book on history published by one of the leading academic publishing houses in the UK. That takes some beating!

In his mystery novel "Killed on the Ice", William L. DeAndrea has his sleuth, TV reporter Matt Cobb, voice the very same objection against saying "very unique".

tjoeb};>

Some years ago I was working in Turkey and making an effort to learn the language. There were certain pairs of words that I consistently confused. The wife of one of my Turkish colleagues had a sister who was a nurse, and who a was particular favourite of mine. Walking down the street one day I saw my friend and his wife approaching. I silently rehearsed what I was going to say and when we met I said, in my very best Turkish, "How is you sister who is an umbrella?" Not really a malapropism, but on the same lines I think.

I had a friend at one point. He really thought he was super intelligent.

I pointed out something to him as a neologism and he said, "That's a malaprop."

We argued back and forth until I got the dictionary and showed him the next day and shortly thereafter our friendship disintegrated.

An awful lot of pride on his part to put his definitions over human life.

Before being elected Australian Prime-minister Tony Abbott stated "No one, however smart, however well educated, however experienced, is the suppository of all wisdom"

Um...lol.

One word that bothers me a bit is reiteration. It's redundant. Iteration already means repetition. If I hear "let me reiterate" one more time from either a politician or a newscaster, I will probably scream lol. When people use that word do they really mean "if I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times"? lol. But apparently if you abuse a NON-word long enough, it will eventually be added to the dictionary. Sigh.

In any case, while malapropisms are frequently amusing, they're not a new thing regardless of how many recent presidents, VP's and other leaders of state have abused the English language lol. Shakespeare (or whoever you think wrote Shakespeare) used them on purpose. Same for the character Archie Bunker from "All in the Family" and of course, Mrs Malaprop, a character created by Richard Sheridan.

I agree with your comment about reiteration, etc. In Britain no self-respecting trade union official ever repeats anything; he always reiterates it, as if that word were the hallmark of a genuine trade unionist and as if using repeat would cast doubt on his status.

One of the best malapropisms I've come across is in Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain. A newly arrived (in more senses than one) female patient at the sanatorium likes to show off her knowledge of Beethoven and consistently refers to the Eroica symphony as --- the Erotica. Nobody points out her mistake; they just smirk.

I looked it up:
‘He iterated his point.’ NOT ‘He reiterated his point.’
So, you would use ‘reiterate’ only if you actually were iterating again, for a second/third time!

I agree that 'reiterated' is wrong, but it sounds right. "He iterated his point" sounds rather rude to me, but I am only a dumb Aussie with a dirty mind.

What was really funny though and what made him so mad was when he said, "Actually, that's a malaprop."

I said, "Actually, it's a neologism, and by using the word 'malaprop', it is actually YOU who are using a malaprop!"

Because he was malapropriating the word 'malaprop'.