Grammar: Howlers 25

Words and phrases can get distorted if you've only heard them, and have never seen them written.

Munchjack deer are an invasive species. (muntjac)

His unpleasant remarks wrangled. (rankled)

The pictures were painted in egg tempura. (tempera)

The priest was a friend to his partitioners. (parishioners)

Enrol for unroll

Thither for tother

He repeated the conversation pervatum. (verbatim)

Yeons ago... (Aeons or eons.)

Forced perspective (It's "false perspective".)

Rhymes for rhines (drainage ditches)

This book comes complete with dusk jacket. (dust jacket)

Non challancy (nonchalance)

It’s only foo leather, not the real thing. (Faux, French for false.)

In hoc to (Like ad hoc – but it’s “in hock” ie in pawn.)

I have been reading the series in order, and so far I have found this the least for filling. (fulfilling)

Their aim is to sew confusion. (Sow as in sowing seed.)

He has a pension for railwayana. (penchant)

Your remark was very inciteful. (insightful)

at one fail swoop (In Macbeth, it's "one fell swoop".)

The underpass was decorated with graphity. (graffiti)

But doth suffer a C change. (In the Tempest, it's "sea change".)

He’s biased, he's got an act to grind. (It's "axe".)

The soap opera was rather mellow dramatic. (In the early 19th century, only two theatres in London were licensed for plays. Other theatres had to present plays as "melodramas", with songs and dances and dramatic underscoring from a band in the pit. The "melo" bit is from "melody".)

brassic flint for “boracic lint”. (It's rhyming slang for “skint”. Boracic lint was a WWI wound dressing.)

Our pleas fell on death years. (deaf ears)

James Stewart raises the barre considerably. (The bar that’s raised is one you have to high-jump over, not one you hold onto while doing pliés and arabesques.)

This strategy does not address the route cause. (root cause) 

Low and behold! (It's "lo!" which means the same as "behold!", but we don't say it much any more.)

We don't need to make a big kerfluffle about it. (Kerfuffle, meaning "song and dance". )

They decide to hold up in the cave for the night. (imdb. Did we say "hole up" before we adopted the ugly “hunker down”?)

In Revolutionary France, women wore mop caps. (mob caps)

There's no need to put women on a pedal-stool. (pedestal)

Budapest is full of Art No Voo houses. (Art Nouveau)

Right from the gecko. (get go)

If I want to remember something, I write it on a postic note. (Post-It)

pratful for pratfall (vulture.com)

Quote on quote (quote unquote)

In too smaller space. (in too small a space)

More here, and links to the rest.