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A malapropism (/ ˈ m æ l ə p r ɒ p ɪ z əm /; also called a malaprop, acyrologia or Dogberryism) is the incorrect use of a word in place of a word with a similar sound, either unintentionally or for comedic effect, resulting in a nonsensical, often humorous utterance.
A misnomer may also be a word that is used incorrectly or misleadingly. [2] The word "misnomer" does not mean "misunderstanding" or "popular misconception", [2] and a number of misnomers remain in common usage — which is to say that a word being a misnomer does not necessarily make usage of the word incorrect.
Tu quoque ('you too' – appeal to hypocrisy, whataboutism) – stating that a position is false, wrong, or should be disregarded because its proponent fails to act consistently in accordance with it. [112] Two wrongs make a right – assuming that, if one wrong is committed, another wrong will rectify it. [113]
Verbal paraphasias are confusions of words or the replacement of one word by another real word; another definition is that of a contextually inappropriate English word or an English word of a syntactically incorrect class – the wrong part of speech, for example. [14]
To levy is to impose (1) a tax, fine or other assessment, or (2) a military draft; as a noun, a levy is an assessment or army thus gathered. The two words share a common root, but they are not considered interchangeable in Standard English. Because they are homophones, misuse is usually only apparent when observed in writing.
For example, for certain types of questions, answers that people rate as "99% certain" turn out to be wrong 40% of the time. [ 5 ] [ 43 ] [ 44 ] [ 45 ] Planning fallacy , the tendency for people to underestimate the time it will take them to complete a given task.
Jumping to conclusions (officially the jumping conclusion bias, often abbreviated as JTC, and also referred to as the inference-observation confusion [1]) is a psychological term referring to a communication obstacle where one "judge[s] or decide[s] something without having all the facts; to reach unwarranted conclusions".
Occasionally a word written in its orthodox spelling is altered with internal capital letters, hyphens, italics, or other devices so as to highlight a fortuitous pun. Some examples: After the controversial 2000 United States presidential election , the alleged improprieties of the election prompted the use of such titles as "pResident" and "(p ...