What Is a Malaphor?
We’ve all done it: You’re thinking about one thing, and then you decide to say another, creating a mishmash of words and syllables. Perhaps you were thinking “surprised” and then “excited,” so it came out of your mouth as “exprised.” Extend it to full phrases, and that’s how we get
the humorous figure of speech called the malaphor. And no, we didn’t misspell “metaphor.” Whereas a metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable, a malaphor twists up well-known phrasing to humorous...
