DEBBIE NORRELL
Last week Yogi Berra passed away. He was one of the greatest catchers in baseball history and was well-known for his humorous malapropisms. Are you scratching your head and asking yourself what is a malaprop? I get it. I didn’t hear the word malaprop until about three weeks ago.
Here is a definition: an example of a malapropism (he always said polo bears and remember Pearl Island). A malapropism is the unintentionally humorous misuse or distortion of a word or phrase: the use of a word sounding somewhat like the one intended but ludicrously wrong in context. Most of the time the joke is on the one misusing the word.
I heard Sirius XM talk show host Karen Hunter use the word malaprop when a caller used the phrase “right off the back.” The term is actually “right off the bat.” The poor caller never got to finish his thought because Hunter, who is also a publisher and professor at Hunter College, took him to task and hung up on him. You go girl! Hunter reminds me of my old talk show days. Let’s get back to Yogi, here is a list of his most infamous “Yogisms.”
When you come to a fork in the road, take it.
You can observe a lot by just watching.
It ain’t over till it’s over.
It’s like déjà vu all over again.No one goes there nowadays, it’s too crowded.
Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical. A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.
Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t come to yours.
We made too many wrong mistakes. Congratulations. I knew the record would stand until it was broken.”
The one that drives me crazy is the phrase, “it’s like Deja vu all over again” it makes my skin crawl. I didn’t know where this ridiculous statement came from. I was hearing national and local news anchors use it time after time. I kept asking myself why isn’t anyone correcting them?
The term déjà vu means the illusion of remembering scenes and events when experienced for the first time or a feeling that one has seen or heard something before. The correct way to use the phrase is, “it was like déjà vu.” When I hear new anchors use this phrase on the television and radio it appears to me that they believe what they are saying is correct.
Perhaps if they had added “to quote Yogi Berra” in front of the phrase it would have made sense or if they defined it when using it. But you should never use a word in a newscast that you have to immediately define for your audience.
But in most of the news reports that I can remember they were reporting very serious news stories why are they using this quip? The other malaprop that burns my butt is the use of the word “ideal” when the person really means “idea.” Look these words up they are two different words. Who says that?
(Email the columnist at debbienorrell@aol.com)
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