You may remember Mrs. Malaprop. She's the meddlesome, nettlesome, kettledrum aunt in Richard Sheridan's 1775 play "The Rivals" who continually substitutes similar-sounding words for the intended ones.
Mrs. Malaprop tells us, for instance, that she has "little affluence (influence) over her niece," that a certain gentleman is "the very pineapple (pinnacle) of politeness," and that another character is as "headstrong as an allegory (alligator) on the ba ...
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