Malapropism

A Malapropism is a Word that is inappropriately used in place of a similarly sounding Word with different meaning.

• Example(s):
  • “It was just a pigment of her imagination." figment → pigment
  • “I’m suing you for definition of character!" defamation → definition
  • “They where late.”. where → were.
• See: Malapropism Detection Task, Malapropism Detection Algorithm.

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References

• (Wordnet, 2009) ⇒ http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
  • the unintentional misuse of a word by confusion with one that sounds similar
• (Wikipedia, 2009) ⇒ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malapropism
  • A malapropism (also called Dogberryism) is the substitution of one word for another incorrect word with a similar sound, usually to comic effect.
• http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/malapropism
  • The blundering use of an absurdly inappropriate word in place of a similar sounding one; An instance of this

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