Mal Mots

This is a collection of mal mots I have heard, read in email, or that friends have given me. Mal mot is a term I gave to those words and phrases people misuse when they're trying to sound erudite. Or when they just don't know any better. Mal mots are not typos (or speakos.) These are clearly the word that was intended to be used, but it's just wrong.

I've stripped the full quotes down to the minimum needed to get the point across. Leaving in full context diminishes the mal mot.

If you don't understand any of these, then toddle along for this page is not meant for you.
If you really want a hint, click here for the same mal mots, but with the offending word in bold.

Without further adieu, here are the mal mots I have collected so far:

07/12/10

• "How do we dove-sail these together?"
  
  
• "We need to flush out this document."
  
  
• "I think I'd get really board with a normal job."
  
  

07/05/31

• "I met him in the receding line."
  
  
• "... when I know they won't pass mustard."
  
  
• "That's just an exercise in fertility."
  
  
• "That's a mute point."
  
  
• "... if you can eek out something ..."
  
  
• ".. organizational layers just above the rack and file"
  
  
• "... the first-class tuition he received was all for not."
  
  
• "... we were whist away to the local bakery"
  
  
• "... with a deep-seeded grudge ..."
  
  
• "There must have been some other more deep seeded reason behind it."
  
  
• "For all intensive purposes..."
  
  
• "Wow did I just see the best sweater! I barely escaped the store with my $50 still in tack!"
  
  
• "Manners are not letting people get away with stuff because they are claudes."
  
  
• "... the point you elude to above".
  
  
• "I could care less about..."
  
  
• "I've gained so much weight since taking on this sedimentary position."
  
  
• "We're in unchartered waters now."
  
  
• "I came upon this wonderful expert from Pablo Casals."
  
  
• "They had the gull to ask for ID and a credit card."
  
  
• "As far as I know the pipes went extinct in the early 19th century and no bonified examples exist."
  
  
• "... design that would allow tactile discrimination for the visually repaired."
  
  
• "We'll get the fridge and bed one day, she says whistfully."
  
  
• "What's the good at retiring at an early age with all that money if you have completely burnt out with massive cornias on the side?"
  
  
• "Maybe then, you can help me flush out the third goal."
  
  
• "> the toleration of violence in our society is at the root of...
  Yeh, they should be horse wiped."
  
  
• "I know there are a lot of Scottish Sir names among the folks living in the Blue Ridge Mountains."
  
  
• "... it will reek havoc on ..."
  
  
• "My tack on this is..."
  
  
• "He looked too calm to be fighting a need to slack his hunger."
       This was from a vampire novel and was obviously not a typo since the same phrase was used at least three times.
  
  
• "We have a full contingency of altos."
  
  
• "The grief and loss were palatable."
  
  
• After this faux pax I guess ..."
  
  

Yes, I know my own text includes a mal mot. This was intentional.