Mr. and Mrs. Malaprop on the Campaign Trail

I've noticed that American presidential campaigns generate a bumper crop of malapropisms, verbal mistakes named for Mrs. Malaprop, a comedic 18th century play character who tended to use an incorrect word in place of one with a similar sound. Mrs. Malaprop would urge "illiterate him, I say, quite from your memory" when she meant "obliterate," for example, and compared someone to "an allegory on the banks of the Nile" instead of an alligator. The malapropism tendency is fairly common and certainly has not been cured by 21st century sophistication. Examples include using "for all intensive purposes" in place of "for all intents and purposes," and "he supposably said" instead of the correct "he supposedly said." I heard a recent passionate declaration that "his claim doesn't jive with the facts," which would mean his claim can't engage in hip dance or talk but not the intended "his claim doesn't jibe with the facts," meaning a claim not agreeing with the facts. The famous and powerful are not immune. Former President George W. Bush was Mr. Malaprop, delivering gems such as "We cannot let terrorists and rogue nations hold this nation hostile or hold our allies hostile." I wince when I hear malapropisms continue to fly from the mouths of today's presidential hopefuls and TV commentators. Social media is especially littered with these faux pas. For example, GOP candidate Ben Carson called Sharia Law "a central tenant of Islam" when he meant "tenet," and Republican contender Marco Rubio repeated the debate phrase “Let’s dispel with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing,” when he probably meant to use "dispense with." GOP hopeful Jeb Bush may have inherited a bit of brother George's language tangling, saying in his kick-off foreign policy speech that immigration should be “a catalytic converter for sustained economic growth" (meaning "catalyst," Jeb?), and explaining to an interviewer the difficulties of criticizing brother George when “I have to do the Heisman on my brother"--likely a reference to the throat-clearing Heimlich not the football trophy. For amusing malapropisms, see: http://www.fun-with-words.com/malapropisms.html