Netizen's Reaction

We have been discussing malapropism sporadically. And there was one alert reader who was hell-bent on fine-tuning himself and he was trying his damn best not to fall into this category of people who make mistakes of using wrong words in place of the target words. 

He told us that one way of avoiding falling prey to this parang "mali-mali syndrome"  a Filipino culture-bound syndrome characterized by thought, motor behavior, and speech disturbance is knowing ourselves and identifying the words wrongly used.

He admits he wants to be known as somebody "humorous" but not of this kind of variety where everyone laughs because you made a fool of yourself using the incorrect words na parang yong ale sa palengke na mali-mali.

So he asked: How do you identify malapropism?

One way of identifying malapropism is realizing that a word or phrase is being used in the wrong context. If a word or remark is quoted out of context it means the circumstances in which it was said were not correctly reported ... meaning that it seems to mean something different from the meaning it was intended.  

If the word sounds awkward or "offish" ... there goes your cue. Google it up ... and look it up ... if the word is right on Q or being used wrongly. If you feel it was the wrong word ... make some research and find the correct word.  That simple.

Malapropisms are best corrected through modeling rather than calling attention to the error directly as this allows the person to save face. 

Malapropism sometimes embarrasses somebody especially when a serious debate turns funny and silly and the speaker does not even realize it.

Another way of avoiding being the laughing stock or the object of ridicule is for us to expand our vocabulary.