MALAPROPS AND PORTMANTOLOGISMS.
[To TH. EDITOR or TH. ..8”CTATOR.1
Sra,—Perhaps you may care to have a few well-authenticated specimens of unconscious word-torturing, in addition to the exquisite instances cited in your moat amusing article of April 9th.
A lady of my acquaintance spoke not long ago of Mat. Morgan as a pain-eceneter, meaning, of course, a scene-painter. Such portmautologisms were quite common with her. She could never remember whether Harrison Ainsworth or Ainsworth Harrison was the proper name of the well-known novelist. Another lady whom I know very well, pointed 'out Keble College to a friend some weeks back, informing her that it was " not a bad specimen of Butterick " (meaning to say Butterfield).
I once heard a municipal orator, in a well-known Midland watering-place, express his hope that the new water supply would be turned on during the then Mayor's Mariolatry. An Alderman of another borough, when some years ago the Japanese Ambassadors were feted by the Corporation, so transfigured the toast entrusted to him that he proposed the health of the Typhoon of Japan. The Mayor of the same borough some years before had excused his unpunctuality at a missionary meeting, where he arrived ten minutes later than the time fixed for taking the chair, by saying that magis- terial duties had detained him, and that he could not be
amphibious. Bat perhaps the most systematic evolver of malaprops that I have met with is an old soldier, most honour. ably rude donatus, tall, straight as a dart, and with a diction habitually sesquipedalian. He has been for a long time curator of a public educational institution, which shall, of course, be nameless. In accordance with the duties of his responsible position, it has sometimes fallen to his lot to remind the students of forgotten regulations. " Gentlemen," he cried out on one occasion, when a threatening game of leap-frog was going on in a somewhat shaky gallery ; " why this violent disturbance P" " Well," was the reply, " what business is it of yours ?" "Gentlemen," he indignantly responded, displaying his full height, "do you not know that I am placed here by the Governors of this College to* conserve this building ?" At another time, the prank was played upon him of being simul- taneously summoned by two students from different ends of a corridor. " Gentlemen," he cried out, " I really can- not be iniquitous." The snow one winter found its way through the roof. "Sir,' he said to the Principal, "this building is replete nowhere." " Complete, you mean, Thomas P" "No; replete, Sir," replied Thomas, with soldierlike decision and imperturbability. On another occasion, after heavy rains, there was dire disaster of malodorous flood in the cellars. " Sir," reported Thomas, "the rain has permeated the soil, and has resuscitated all the drains to overflowing." And, again, when the water-pipes were in some way out of order,—" Sir, the pipes are corroded with rust, and I myself am corroded with mud." One more story about Thomas, and I have done. It was his duty to make copies of examination-papers by means of a copying-press. This press at one time was not working up to its former high standard of excellence. Said Thomas, with an air of injured dignity,—" Sir, I used to be able to take fourteen copies from a single impression ; but now, when I have taken six, subsequent copies are altogether inaudible."
You suggest that clergymen are specially addicted to the habit of dislocated quotation because "their excessive anxiety to be correct renders them nervous." With aU respect to them, may it not be rather because they, of all men, are most frequently quoting words so familiar that, while the spirit is there right enough, the letter is often, through sheer force of familiarity, somewhat mechanically uttered P—I am, Sir, &c., J. M.
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