Competition | 20 September 2008

In Competition No 2562 you were invited to write a soliloquy by someone prone to malapropisms or misquotations, or a dialogue between them.
The trouble with this comp, as I realised when the entries started to come in, is that the two categories overlap; a misquotation often is a malapropism. Happily this didn’t put too many of you off, and there were plenty of verbal absurdities that would have had ’em rolling in the aisles in 1775. It’s many years since I read The Rivals and I didn’t find it very funny then; even less so now. Too much Sheridanfreude, as Mrs M would have it. Today malapropisms prompt embarrassment, perhaps, but not much laughter unless they come from a buffoon like George Bush or John Prescott. Or, indeed, yours truly. My M moment happened some 50 years ago, fittingly in France; attempting to hire a mattress (matelas) on which to recline by the pool, I heard myself asking for a maîtresse; which I quickly corrected to matelot.