A malaprop is a word or phrase used mistakenly for a similar-sounding word or phrase, often to amusing effect. Quiz Guy John Chaneski offers a puzzle in honor of the late comedian Norm Crosby, a.k.a. “Mr. Malaprop,” who once noted that “The human body is prone to many melodies.” For each quiz clue, John has replaced each malaprop with its definition. For example, John says, Norm once took his trousers to the tailor because they were in need of “a noisy public argument.” What did those trousers need? This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “A Malaprop Brain Pleaser”
We’re still getting pangrams from listeners, those sentences that contain every letter of the alphabet.
And ideally they’re as short as possible and they make sense. This one came in from Sarah McCall.
Just mask up and be extra careful that you don’t quit always sanitizing everything.
Whoa, wow, how appropriate, right? Yes, I think that ticks all the boxes. It’s timely and succinct and makes sense. My favorite one is, and then he said, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, O, P.
It works, right? Right, right. That’s like the kid who was told to write a 50-word book report, and he said, I like this book very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very. It’s a little stinker.
We have a lot of people who love wordplay. Maybe you do the wordplay section of the newspaper.
We’ve got this book on the shelf that you can’t leave alone.
That’s because it’s filled with puzzles.
Share some with us.
