Experimental Poetry 12: Deliberate Malapropism

A malapropism is an error in speech or text where a similar sounding word mistakenly replaces the correct word. There are numerous examples. Have you ever been taken for granite? 

The term malapropism derives from Mrs. Malaprop, a comic character who appears in the 1775 play The Rivals, by Richard Sheridan. She is constantly prone to using the wrong words in her conversation. She mixes up allegory with alligator, and illiterate with obliterate.  However, there are plenty of earlier incidences of comic word mangling in literature, including several found in the work of William  Shakespeare. 

Modern day malapropism can be hilarious... did you know that medieval cathedrals were supported by flying buttocks? Or that the fun we have in childhood is incomparable to the fun of adultery? 

Here's a recent poem posted in Invisible Poets. The poem is I am a Warrior by Chiledu Ohagi, and this is the first stanza...

I wedge a war against my feelings
pulling down strongholds
breaking the chains of depression
My pages, my battleground
My pen, my mighty weapon
and my ink's my ammunition

It's a very good poem, but it contains a small typographical error. I wedge war should be I wage war. The error was pointed out by another member, but when you think about it, wedging war certainly sounds surreally poetic. It's on a par with writing that you'll skew for peace, or astounding the alarm. I don't think he should correct it.

Method 20: Deliberate Malapropism. This got me thinking... how surreal and experimental can you get by using deliberate malapropisms? The trick is to make the error obvious, and create a phonetic switch. Wedge sounds like wage, just as skew sounds like sue, and as astounding sounds like sounding. These are instantly recognisable as phonetic switches, because the phrases are familiar. 

Waging war is a commonly used phrase. Wedging war is not. How do you wedge a war? It's a jarring word to use, and that makes it interesting, manifesting all sorts of images. Wedging is more poetically inventive than waging. How do you skew peace? Can you astound an alarm? Again, the text suddenly becomes a little more intriguing, because the meaning now needs to be sought out. 

Method 21: Reiterative Malapropism. What words can you use that are homophones (sound like another word) or similarly sounding, but with a distinctly different meaning? Can you strengthen your existing poems by changing words with other words that sound similar, or pun-like, and enhance the meaning of the poem?

If you deliberately use phonetic errors such as malapropisms in your poetry, you're bound to attract some attention. Just be prepared to correct the correctors when they scrawl out from under their woks to point out your 'era'.

Steve Wheeler 

Previous posts in this series

Experimental Poetry 1: Found Poetry
Experimental Poetry 2: Stream of Consciousness
Experimental Poetry 3: Fake Translations
Experimental Poetry 4: Overlapping Voices
Experimental Poetry 5: Random Prompts
Experimental Poetry 6: The Movie Method
Experimental Poetry 7: Unexpected End Rhymes
Experimental Poetry 8: Calligrams
Experimental Poetry 9: Anarchic Poetry
Experimental Poetry 10: Timed Writing
Experimental Poetry 11: Paraphrasing

Image from Wikimedia Commons