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Sapere Aude´s Bilingual

Department Blog


Welcome to Sapere Aude´s Bilingual Department Blog. The blog for those who love English and enjoy learning not only the language but also about the culture and society of English speaking countries.


Here you will find articles, students´contributions, sections about sayings, useful vocabulary, riddles,… . If you are a student at Sapere Aude, I hope you will enjoy the blog and find an opportunity to learn and have fun with English, and if you are a parent that perhaps wants to brush up on your English, I hope you´ve found the right place to do it.

Carlos Hernández






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3 feb 2013

CHINGLISH MALAPROPISMS





Shanghai authorities are trying to clean up English-language signs and menus to rid them of their malapropisms, like these examples. But, what is a malapropism? A malapropism is a word that is used wrongly but sounds like the word that you should have used, especially one that creates a funny change of meaning, for example, "Texas has a lot of electrical votes", instead of electoral. In Spanish, Sofía Mazagatos, a celebrity from glossy magazines, made famous the expression estar en el candelabro, instead of candelero). 

The word "malapropism" comes from the French "mal à propos" meaning "inappropriate", and was personified by Richard Brinsley Sheridan in his comedy The Rivals (1775) as "Mrs Malaprop", a character who habitually misused her  words.



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