Wednesday, August 22, 2007

TWO Lexicoins

Before I hit the sack tonight, I stumbled upon two new lexicoins (neologisms/neoglisms?). In fact, I like one so much that I'm thinking of using it as a short story title:

Ms. Malaproper

n. (person) A young modern woman who has the appearance of being all prim and proper but who, in fact, has a dark soul.

Mrs. Malaproper

n. (person) The young woman's mother.

_______________________

Neither term (in quotation markers) shows up on Google.

Without quotations, "Ms. Malaproper" has about 12 Google hits, but none of them pertain to the entire term.

Without quotations, "Mrs. Malaproper" has about 7 Google hits, again none of them pertaining to the entire term.

By itself, "Malaproper" shows up about 230 times on Google, which includes my post from the other day.

According to TV Tropes Wiki,

The distinguishing characteristic of the Malaproper is that they constantly replace words with similar-sounding but wrong ones. A common form of this is for the Malaproper to mangle proverbs, idioms, and other figures of speech. They may turn them into something nonsensical, or use overly complicated synonyms that make them sound wrong; e.g., "The cat's out of the bag" becomes "The feline has been released from the sack!" This character will almost always be corrected, not that this does any good.

The meaning seems to shift when one includes the formal address, at least it seems so to me, hence my assigned meaning.

Of course, two-word lexicoins aren't as good as one-word ones, but certainly superior to three-word lexicoins.

For the next month or so, I'll be doing a word watch on the lexicoins discussed here. Meanwhile, let us know about your lexicoins.

Bugzita

No comments: