Before autocorrect made us all morons, there was the malaprop.
Named by Lord Byron after the fictional character Mrs. Malaprop (as in "inappropriate"), the malaprop is a familiar brand of verbal slip.
Malaprops are funny because, though unintended, they seem to work.
Mrs. Malaprop, for example, advised a woeful Lydia Languish to illiterate him from your memory.
Rick Perry once called state governments lavatories of innovation, while an anonymous office worker called a colleague a vast suppository of information.
Speaking of which, Richard Daley once praised Chicago's members of Alcoholics Unanimous.
Boston mayor Thomas Menino called his city's parking shortage an Alcatraz around my neck.
Comedian Norm Crosby worried when he misconscrewed what you said.
President George W. Bush warned we cannot let terrorists hold this nation hostile.
And my boyhood pal Mookie called the corroded faces in monster movies decroded.
But that was just a pigment of his imagination.
