Malapropisms & Mondegreens

Dear Parents,


This week we will visit with malapropisms and mondegreens. 


A character from Sheridan's play 'The Rivals', Mrs. Malaprop would misuse words by substituting a similar sounding but wrong word in its place - hence malapropism. A malapropism is a verbal blunder - an inappropriate or unsuitable use of word(s) because of its similarity to the correct word.  A mondegreen is a sort of aural malapropism. Instead of saying the wrong word, one hears the wrong word. Mondegreens are usually misheard song lyrics.


Here are some online games that will give your student practice with using the correct word.  Have fun and watch out for those malapropisms and mondegreens!

Malapropisms - The Pineapple of Word Quizzes

In this quiz, select the word that should have been used in place of the 'malapropism'."  Once you finish this little quiz, several other similar quizzes are available.

Fun With Words

Here are some funny malapropisms, and even the original ones from Mrs. Malaprop. The mondegreens are from some popular songs.  Do you know any of these songs?

Pop Culture Madness

Here is a very long list of mondegreens from many popular songs. How many of these mondegreens did you hear in your head as you sang along with the radio?

That's all for now.  Have fun with it!