One thing that almost always gets a laugh out of us is when somebody uses incorrect but similar sounding words to express themselves. Electrical instead of electoral, bone jaw instead of bonjour, suppository instead of repository — the comedic potential is nearly limitless because we all have blind spots where we mix up two similarly sounding words that are, in reality, anything but similar in meaning.
The subreddit ‘Bone Apple Tea’ (which sounds almost like bon appétit in French) collects all forms of malapropisms which are when people use an incorrect word that sounds similar to the appropriate word, often with hilarious results. We’ve collected the best such examples, so get your scrolling fingers ready, upvotes your faves and share with your friends. Let us know what the best malapropisms you’ve ever heard are and share with us if you’ve ever committed any embarrassing linguistic accidents yourself.
Be sure to scroll down for Bored Panda's interview with 'Bone Apple Tea's' founder and moderators!
More info: Reddit
This post may include affiliate links.
Bored Panda got in touch with the ‘Bone Apple Tea’ subreddit and talked to its moderators about the community, its history and what it stands for.
The subreddit’s creator TheNekkedNinja had this to say: “I started the sub around 3-ish years ago. I was bored at work and I was curious about how moderating worked. The rest is history!”
“As far as the name goes, I always liked the original bone apple tea meme so when I saw that the name was free, ‘Bone Apple Tea’ was born,” TheNekkedNinja explained. “I never thought I would do anything with it and I definitely never thought it would ever become this big. I have no modding experience so I'm incredibly thankful for the mods that came on board and turned it into what it has become today. We currently have 15 mods who sift through hundreds of submissions a day from over 700K subscribers.”
One of the moderators, Altrissa, told Bored Panda that the community’s mission statement is to “highlight the amount of malapropisms that exist in the world.”
“English is one of the weirdest languages in human history and our sub more than proves it!” the mod said. “If native English speakers can have so many problems finding the correct word, imagine how hard it is for everyone else! It's also quite hilarious to see all of the inventive ways people use phonics to spell words they aren't familiar with.”
“Some of the funniest malapropisms we've heard are usually the more immature ones,” Altrissa revealed. “Tonight tits" for tinnitus, "orgasmic blueberries" for organic blueberries, and "crushed Asians" for crustaceans.”
Incorrect words get used all the time by people from all backgrounds: whether they’re politicians or private citizens, everyone has at some point embarrassed themselves, perhaps unknowingly, by mixing up words that at first glance can look almost identical. Malapropisms tend to have a very powerful effect on people, making us giggle as though we’re schoolchildren.
The very term ‘malapropism’ came into being after Richard Brinsley Sheridan created the stage comedy called The Rivals in 1775. In the popular play, the humorous aunt character Mrs. Malaprop often mixed up words and caused the audience to chuckle with laughter.
For example, Mrs. Malaprop (whose name is a version of the French word malapropos which means ‘inappropriate’) has been known to call the ‘pinnacle of politeness’ the ‘pineapple of politeness.’ She also mixes up ‘allegory’ with ‘alligator.’
The character Archie Bunker from the TV situational comedy All in the Family also constantly used malapropisms. Such as mixing up ‘ill refute’ with ‘ill repute,’ ‘ivory shower’ with ‘ivory tower,’ and ‘pig’s eye’ with ‘pigsty.’ We laugh at times like these because the jokes are instinctively funny to us; but we also laugh because we know we’ve made similar mistakes, and they’re a part of being human.
When I was in medical school doing a pediatrics rotation, I came across a child named "Angle". The parents were completely unaware that this wasn't how "Angel" was spelled. I remember thinking, "That poor kid is in great hands. One of the most important decisions up to this point, and the parents can't even be bothered to open a dictionary to check how it's spelled."
Cute, minus the spelling mistake. Oh well, you know what it means!!. I'm up to seven tattoos, as of last October. There are a couple of mess ups as well. Fading ink, crooked flower, uncentered forearm ink, but I don't care. I love my tattoos, they represent, very special people that have been in my life. Two flowers for my kids, two bows with my parents birth & death dates, the medic alert symbol for my epilepsy, and an arm band of chainmail. I'm always drawing up my next ink jobs, since individually is key factor!!. Provided you can find an artist, willing to turn your angle into Angel, no one can undermind your concept anymore. I think it's beautiful, you represent your mother, especially, if she has passed away!! I hope she hasn't, but Condolences if so!!
Not to mention, the capital "M" is half a line higher than the rest.
Great angle to take with your relationship with your mom. But I'd sue the tattoo artist!
Had a student get a tattoo of her baby's face, and "my little angle" underneath it in permanent ink. Had to prove to her how angel is properly spelled, and that "angle" is never an alternative spelling for the heavenly being!
Customer or tattoo artist? A dancer named 'Blaze' got 'Blase' tattooed across his abdomen -oops.
At which point you realize just how hard it is to square the circle
I got Type 2 Diabetes, from now on I will call it "Tattoo Diabetes", it sounds much better :-)
You don't even get a discount with 2 for 5. Why not just say 2.50
Note: this post originally had 86 images. It’s been shortened to the top 40 images based on user votes.
There's an abandoned house a couple blocks from me with a sign on the back door "No Trust Posing!" I laugh hysterically every time we walk past it! I want to have my husband take a picture while I trust fall back onto the door
I had to shut my eyes and say it out loud to figure out what they were trying to say!
Load More Replies...
My sister in law is 11 and she left a passive aggressive note for no one to touch her work of art because it was "Delicut".
No, they’re not. You’ll be surprised to find out that there are many people out there who have been saying things wrong their whole life.
Load More Replies...
To be fair, unless you've tried those blueberries you don't really know they aren't orgasmic.
My ex mother-in-law used malapropisms so often, that I use to miss some important details of the family. For instance, she had a niece that was a lesbian, but she always said Lebanese. Needless to say, said niece was very confused when I first met her and had learned a few phrases then asked about her culture. I should have known.
That was so sweet and welcoming of you. I hope you both had a good belly laugh over the confusion. انت لطيف اوي خهههه، LOL. (You’re very nice, LOL)
Load More Replies...
Prior to the 2016 elections, someone kept calling people from the opposing party 'pee ons' (peons) in a comment section. It wouldn't have been that bad except for the fact that he also called them things like 'illiterates ' and 'morons'.
I think a lot of this can be blamed on a crappy education system and a generation that learned to text before they got to school. Hard to spell the words right when you abbreviate everything....
Not always the case. Even back in the 1930's people were misinterpreting words. Language has become sloppy and people do actually mishear words they are not used to spelling by writing it.
Load More Replies...
A lot probably are native English speakers. Many people simply don't read enough, so they don't know what the words are supposed to look like, and just go with what they think they hear. That's why you so often see 'should of', instead of 'should have'. People hear 'should've' as 'should of' and go with that, instead of thinking about whether it's correct.
Load More Replies...
There was a woman at our bank that would offer to help one "bounce their checkbooks."
I work in IT. Where we store code is called a 'repository'. One day, while talking to a colleague, I accidentally said 'suppository', slip of the tongue really, I realised my mistake straight away and hoped he didn't notice... My colleague proceeded to refer to the repository as suppository 12 times. I had to restrain myself from bursting out with laughter throughout the whole conversation, it was torture!
I remember being at a fried chicken shop in the Bronx and they served pizza ... on the menu, they had moshrum and barikle ... my fiance, her son and I were wracking our brains trying to figure out what was barikle (we figured what moshrum was) ... it wasn't until a month later that I was thinking about Hercules and remembered how the original spelling is Heracles, but was pronounced like Hercules ... then it dawned on me that barikle was broccoli ...
... Heracles isn't / wasn't pronounced like Hercules. Hercules was the Roman version of his name. Herakles/Heracles is said more like how it's spelled: "hera-klees".
Load More Replies... I must admit, the accent of some people is often the problem. (and lazy speech patterns) If they don't write often, they will 'hear' it in the accent they are used to and then use that as what they believe is the correct term or word.I live in Australia and the amount of crazy misinterpretations can be down right hilarious. 'Kath and Kim' an Aussie comedy show here, was one; Effluent for Affluent. Cracks me up! One day I must post the ones I come across here!
American here. Had a friend long ago who traveled to Australia to live and work for awhile. She took dictation for a letter from her boss. She heard his "rates" as "rights."
Load More Replies... As technology becomes more advanced and smarter, people are get dumber. I dont understand. All of the world's information is available at your finger tips yet you cant google how to spell parmesan? Turn that auto correct back on, please. lol
Btw, took me a while to understand that chicken parmesan is the US' version of chicken a la parmigiana lol
Load More Replies...
Had to take a photo at an upscale Vegas buffet offering "Chic Peas". I guess they are all the rage.
Psh, who needs to invest in edumacation. Not important, right? MAH TAXES ARE MORE IMPORTINT!
Actually, I just found out something really shocking. In the US, kids aren't actually being taught to read and write in many schools. They are taught to basically guess at the words, and not taught how to correlate individual letters to sounds. That would make it really difficult to guess how to spell something even if they know how to pronounces. I wonder if that isn't part of the problem with some of these posts. A good article on this: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/26/opinion/sunday/phonics-teaching-reading-wrong-way.html
Load More Replies...
If people read more they would see how words are written. But books and newspapers will be obsolete soon :(
I find the words I mispronounce tend to be ones I have read but never heard used.
Load More Replies...
I have the opposite problem. I read a lot when I was a kid and was reading books that were advanced for my age. As a result, I have some pronunciations of words that are a bit off. I've found most of them through weird looks from people. I had to relearn how to pronounce words like paradigm, adolescence and even La Jolla. However, I have little trouble with the Native American names in the Pacific Northwest since I heard most of them before I saw them printed. My dad has been working on our family tree and has been emailing with a gentleman in Denmark who taught himself English by watching English language TV. He has some interesting spellings of English words, but is otherwise fluent in English.
I had the same problem, Snowy. I read a lot and would completely mispronounce words in my head. It led to a lot of embarrassment as I got a bit older. To this day, there a few words that I have to think twice about before I read them out loud.
Load More Replies...
I have seen some signs here in South Africa advertising: Panting, Tilling, Capeting and also Tree Feeling.
The hooked on phonics generation was created so we could have wonderful interactions like these!
Our dear Polish landlady hung a "veat paint" sign on the apartment railing. 35 years later in our own house we still say and write veat paint.
My old mum was once asked what religion she was ? She said she was prostitute !
My friend told her son that Tzatziki Sauce was Shits-ki Sauce. He pronounced it like that until he was a teen and ordered it at a restaurant. #facepalm
Mom, who could fracture any language, called Mazatlan 'Matzoh Land' I had to laugh when we got there, 'cause it does look just like Miami Beach.
A sign on a property in our town read 'No trespassing by owers' Somebody told him there's an 'n' in there, so next it read 'No trespassing by oners'
Autocorrect might explain some of the texting errors. My tablet used to spell Lac La Ronge as "Lackey Orange" (among other nonsensical corrections) before I finally figured out how to shut off the autocorrect function.
I took a lot of French in school and would write it as Lac L'Orange if I heard it before seeing it. It's one of the ways that languages evolve. English has a lot of words adopted and adapted from other languages so it has a wide range of spellings and can be one of the hardest languages to learn because of it.
Load More Replies...
This is why using text-to-speech is a problem. Mispronunciation is both regional and endemic in the variety of English speech, world-wide. It took 12 years for Dragon 'Naturally Speaking' to finally make a version which could understand my American English accent...and it still incorrectly writes some words (many fewer, however). -Dr M
A few of these new understanding bots and Alexa type things still struggle with my kiwi accent XD i have once had to put on an American accent, it worked lol
Load More Replies...
Hands down the funniest post I have ever seen on Boredpanda! HOLY C**P
I have seen a medical form where the patient wrote “forrid” instead of forehead. And “rest bite” instead of respite
My sister is hearing impaired and spells most things phonetically, according to how she hears the word.. After almost 37 yrs of reading her writing, I could read these as easily as any novel.. Lol
Actually, I'm not sure if I misheard or if dear papa was having joke, but I remember him bring home a beautiful black "labradog!" Yeah, don't ask, It was 60 years ago!
Luckily I was recording the news, since I was so certain that they said "Bombay Root." I rewound my tape, and yup, it was "........have threatened to bomb Beirut!" Plus BBC, why did you say, "and now the News Headlice?
I wonder if these people are joking? If so, these posts should be Disk Wallyfied!
Unfortunately, most people confuse 'lay' with 'lie!' So, why criticize the poor buggers above? People don't 'lay' unless its tiles or carpet. Chickens, crocodiles etc 'lay' eggs. People 'lie' down, lie in bed, lie in over the week end etc... It is not my fault that I burst out laughing and visualised "a dead body (squatting) laying (eggs) in the bushes!" Words do have meanings, just as black means black and white means white.
The thing that gets me is that they spell all the words used in the wrong context correctly.
Thanks very much for making my guts hurt while I was eating. It got a little messy cause I tried to eat while I read the many comments. Thank God I have my own office!
I have to say I've had a really good laugh at these posts and also the comments.
How many times I've seen song lyrics and discover I've been singing the wrong words for decades..Embarrassing..
There was a lot more of that before FM and CDs. On AM, especially transistor radios (!) and mono records it was easy to make mistakes. When CDs came out and were used on radio, suddenly all these lyrics became clear! Finally!
Load More Replies...
I worked with a woman who got stuck on "entrepreneurial" so wrote it "intrepid oriole." I've always loved that one -- it was a really heroic effort to come up with a word she clearly had never heard of. I suspect that's the case with most of these. Either that or they just can't spell for sh*t!
Reminds me of this Italian friend of mine that asked me "Who is this Jose guy in the National Anthem?" "Jose? In the National Anthem?" "Yes, you know, when it says "Oh Jose can you see?" "No, no, no, it's "Oh Say can you see" Not Jose" I always thought this was a joke, but so many Italians (I am one too, born there) make this mistake.
Oh, oh! It took a while.......Jose as in Spanish!? Now it makes sense.
Load More Replies...
I love how sure you are of your grammar, since you are insulting mine. I guess we differ in opinion because i believe that if unlimited amount of resources are available and you choose not to use it, i'd consider that stupid. People "back in the day" didnt have what we have now. I believe that as technology advances, society should too. We shouldn't be lazy from it.
I don’t think people are necessarily dumb in the context of this post. We all make mistakes, especially if we picked up something as a kid through hearing only and maybe never had to write the word before. I find it funny, and cute.
Load More Replies...
I guess English was'nt their first language in most of those, and the others have a lack of education. Funny tho.
I think you're giving native English speakers too much credit. People from other countries study English. Millions of natives don't pick up a book from year to year and are barely literate. That's about 50 million adults.
Load More Replies...
There's an abandoned house a couple blocks from me with a sign on the back door "No Trust Posing!" I laugh hysterically every time we walk past it! I want to have my husband take a picture while I trust fall back onto the door
I had to shut my eyes and say it out loud to figure out what they were trying to say!
Load More Replies... My sister in law is 11 and she left a passive aggressive note for no one to touch her work of art because it was "Delicut".
No, they’re not. You’ll be surprised to find out that there are many people out there who have been saying things wrong their whole life.
Load More Replies... To be fair, unless you've tried those blueberries you don't really know they aren't orgasmic.
My ex mother-in-law used malapropisms so often, that I use to miss some important details of the family. For instance, she had a niece that was a lesbian, but she always said Lebanese. Needless to say, said niece was very confused when I first met her and had learned a few phrases then asked about her culture. I should have known.
That was so sweet and welcoming of you. I hope you both had a good belly laugh over the confusion. انت لطيف اوي خهههه، LOL. (You’re very nice, LOL)
Load More Replies... Prior to the 2016 elections, someone kept calling people from the opposing party 'pee ons' (peons) in a comment section. It wouldn't have been that bad except for the fact that he also called them things like 'illiterates ' and 'morons'.
I think a lot of this can be blamed on a crappy education system and a generation that learned to text before they got to school. Hard to spell the words right when you abbreviate everything....
Not always the case. Even back in the 1930's people were misinterpreting words. Language has become sloppy and people do actually mishear words they are not used to spelling by writing it.
Load More Replies... A lot probably are native English speakers. Many people simply don't read enough, so they don't know what the words are supposed to look like, and just go with what they think they hear. That's why you so often see 'should of', instead of 'should have'. People hear 'should've' as 'should of' and go with that, instead of thinking about whether it's correct.
Load More Replies... There was a woman at our bank that would offer to help one "bounce their checkbooks."
I work in IT. Where we store code is called a 'repository'. One day, while talking to a colleague, I accidentally said 'suppository', slip of the tongue really, I realised my mistake straight away and hoped he didn't notice... My colleague proceeded to refer to the repository as suppository 12 times. I had to restrain myself from bursting out with laughter throughout the whole conversation, it was torture!
I remember being at a fried chicken shop in the Bronx and they served pizza ... on the menu, they had moshrum and barikle ... my fiance, her son and I were wracking our brains trying to figure out what was barikle (we figured what moshrum was) ... it wasn't until a month later that I was thinking about Hercules and remembered how the original spelling is Heracles, but was pronounced like Hercules ... then it dawned on me that barikle was broccoli ...
... Heracles isn't / wasn't pronounced like Hercules. Hercules was the Roman version of his name. Herakles/Heracles is said more like how it's spelled: "hera-klees".
Load More Replies... I must admit, the accent of some people is often the problem. (and lazy speech patterns) If they don't write often, they will 'hear' it in the accent they are used to and then use that as what they believe is the correct term or word.I live in Australia and the amount of crazy misinterpretations can be down right hilarious. 'Kath and Kim' an Aussie comedy show here, was one; Effluent for Affluent. Cracks me up! One day I must post the ones I come across here!
American here. Had a friend long ago who traveled to Australia to live and work for awhile. She took dictation for a letter from her boss. She heard his "rates" as "rights."
Load More Replies... As technology becomes more advanced and smarter, people are get dumber. I dont understand. All of the world's information is available at your finger tips yet you cant google how to spell parmesan? Turn that auto correct back on, please. lol
Btw, took me a while to understand that chicken parmesan is the US' version of chicken a la parmigiana lol
Load More Replies... Had to take a photo at an upscale Vegas buffet offering "Chic Peas". I guess they are all the rage.
Psh, who needs to invest in edumacation. Not important, right? MAH TAXES ARE MORE IMPORTINT!
Actually, I just found out something really shocking. In the US, kids aren't actually being taught to read and write in many schools. They are taught to basically guess at the words, and not taught how to correlate individual letters to sounds. That would make it really difficult to guess how to spell something even if they know how to pronounces. I wonder if that isn't part of the problem with some of these posts. A good article on this: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/26/opinion/sunday/phonics-teaching-reading-wrong-way.html
Load More Replies... If people read more they would see how words are written. But books and newspapers will be obsolete soon :(
I find the words I mispronounce tend to be ones I have read but never heard used.
Load More Replies... I have the opposite problem. I read a lot when I was a kid and was reading books that were advanced for my age. As a result, I have some pronunciations of words that are a bit off. I've found most of them through weird looks from people. I had to relearn how to pronounce words like paradigm, adolescence and even La Jolla. However, I have little trouble with the Native American names in the Pacific Northwest since I heard most of them before I saw them printed. My dad has been working on our family tree and has been emailing with a gentleman in Denmark who taught himself English by watching English language TV. He has some interesting spellings of English words, but is otherwise fluent in English.
I had the same problem, Snowy. I read a lot and would completely mispronounce words in my head. It led to a lot of embarrassment as I got a bit older. To this day, there a few words that I have to think twice about before I read them out loud.
Load More Replies... I have seen some signs here in South Africa advertising: Panting, Tilling, Capeting and also Tree Feeling.
The hooked on phonics generation was created so we could have wonderful interactions like these!
Our dear Polish landlady hung a "veat paint" sign on the apartment railing. 35 years later in our own house we still say and write veat paint.
My old mum was once asked what religion she was ? She said she was prostitute !
My friend told her son that Tzatziki Sauce was Shits-ki Sauce. He pronounced it like that until he was a teen and ordered it at a restaurant. #facepalm
Mom, who could fracture any language, called Mazatlan 'Matzoh Land' I had to laugh when we got there, 'cause it does look just like Miami Beach.
A sign on a property in our town read 'No trespassing by owers' Somebody told him there's an 'n' in there, so next it read 'No trespassing by oners'
Autocorrect might explain some of the texting errors. My tablet used to spell Lac La Ronge as "Lackey Orange" (among other nonsensical corrections) before I finally figured out how to shut off the autocorrect function.
I took a lot of French in school and would write it as Lac L'Orange if I heard it before seeing it. It's one of the ways that languages evolve. English has a lot of words adopted and adapted from other languages so it has a wide range of spellings and can be one of the hardest languages to learn because of it.
Load More Replies... This is why using text-to-speech is a problem. Mispronunciation is both regional and endemic in the variety of English speech, world-wide. It took 12 years for Dragon 'Naturally Speaking' to finally make a version which could understand my American English accent...and it still incorrectly writes some words (many fewer, however). -Dr M
A few of these new understanding bots and Alexa type things still struggle with my kiwi accent XD i have once had to put on an American accent, it worked lol
Load More Replies... Hands down the funniest post I have ever seen on Boredpanda! HOLY C**P
I have seen a medical form where the patient wrote “forrid” instead of forehead. And “rest bite” instead of respite
My sister is hearing impaired and spells most things phonetically, according to how she hears the word.. After almost 37 yrs of reading her writing, I could read these as easily as any novel.. Lol
Actually, I'm not sure if I misheard or if dear papa was having joke, but I remember him bring home a beautiful black "labradog!" Yeah, don't ask, It was 60 years ago!
Luckily I was recording the news, since I was so certain that they said "Bombay Root." I rewound my tape, and yup, it was "........have threatened to bomb Beirut!" Plus BBC, why did you say, "and now the News Headlice?
I wonder if these people are joking? If so, these posts should be Disk Wallyfied!
Unfortunately, most people confuse 'lay' with 'lie!' So, why criticize the poor buggers above? People don't 'lay' unless its tiles or carpet. Chickens, crocodiles etc 'lay' eggs. People 'lie' down, lie in bed, lie in over the week end etc... It is not my fault that I burst out laughing and visualised "a dead body (squatting) laying (eggs) in the bushes!" Words do have meanings, just as black means black and white means white.
The thing that gets me is that they spell all the words used in the wrong context correctly.
Thanks very much for making my guts hurt while I was eating. It got a little messy cause I tried to eat while I read the many comments. Thank God I have my own office!
I have to say I've had a really good laugh at these posts and also the comments.
How many times I've seen song lyrics and discover I've been singing the wrong words for decades..Embarrassing..
There was a lot more of that before FM and CDs. On AM, especially transistor radios (!) and mono records it was easy to make mistakes. When CDs came out and were used on radio, suddenly all these lyrics became clear! Finally!
Load More Replies... I worked with a woman who got stuck on "entrepreneurial" so wrote it "intrepid oriole." I've always loved that one -- it was a really heroic effort to come up with a word she clearly had never heard of. I suspect that's the case with most of these. Either that or they just can't spell for sh*t!
Reminds me of this Italian friend of mine that asked me "Who is this Jose guy in the National Anthem?" "Jose? In the National Anthem?" "Yes, you know, when it says "Oh Jose can you see?" "No, no, no, it's "Oh Say can you see" Not Jose" I always thought this was a joke, but so many Italians (I am one too, born there) make this mistake.
Oh, oh! It took a while.......Jose as in Spanish!? Now it makes sense.
Load More Replies... I love how sure you are of your grammar, since you are insulting mine. I guess we differ in opinion because i believe that if unlimited amount of resources are available and you choose not to use it, i'd consider that stupid. People "back in the day" didnt have what we have now. I believe that as technology advances, society should too. We shouldn't be lazy from it.
I don’t think people are necessarily dumb in the context of this post. We all make mistakes, especially if we picked up something as a kid through hearing only and maybe never had to write the word before. I find it funny, and cute.
Load More Replies... I guess English was'nt their first language in most of those, and the others have a lack of education. Funny tho.
I think you're giving native English speakers too much credit. People from other countries study English. Millions of natives don't pick up a book from year to year and are barely literate. That's about 50 million adults.
Load More Replies... 