Root of the Week: MAL (Friday)

Malapert (Adjective), Maladroit (Adjective), Malapropism (Noun)

A person who behaves in an impertinent manner is malapert. This is not a word we see much today but it’s a fun one to know.  In Shakespeare’s Richard III, the elderly Queen, Margaret, rebukes the saucy young Marquis of Dorset, saying “Peace, Master Marquis, you are malapert”! 

A person who is skillful is “adroit,” but a person who tends to bungle things is maladroit. A barista who spills your coffee is maladroit, as is an ambassador who botches a delicate diplomatic mission by unintentionally insulting a negotiating partner. 

When someone maladroitly substitutes one word for another, similar-sounding word, the result is often hilarious. This is called a malapropism (from mal plus “a propos,”appropriate”). The eighteenth-century playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan got a lot of comic mileage out of a character named Mrs. Malaprop in his comedy, The Rivals.  Mrs. Malaprop is fond of verbal flourishes but is not exactly in control of her semantics. So, for example, she pronounces one character to be “the very pineapple of politeness” (she means “pinnacle”). The former governor of Texas, Rick Perry, described the states of the U.S. as “lavatories of innovation and democracy.” You can probably guess what he meant to say!