30 Hilarious Times People Used Incorrect But Similar-Sounding Words

You have surely witnessed or committed an embarrassing word-accident, and these situations are often hilarious.

Incorrect words get used all the time by people from all backgrounds, and we all end up mixing words that at first glance can look almost identical. Yet, they always have a very powerful effect and make everyone giggle.

There is an endless list of pairs of similar-sounding words with different meanings, like Mail instead of Male, Chair instead of Cheer, Electrical instead of Electoral, Bone Jaw instead of Bonjour, Suppository instead of Repository, Etiquette instead of Air ticket.

The complexity of the English language and the numerous homophones, or similar-sounding words with different meanings, explain why many people are mispronouncing words, and even native English speakers sometimes jumble the words.

A subreddit ‘Bone Apple Tea’ sounding like the French version of Bon Appetit has made a funny compilation of forms of a malapropism. A malapropism is the use of an incorrect word in place of a word with a similar sound, resulting in a nonsensical, sometimes humorous utterance.

The subreddit’s creator TheNekkedNinja explained that he started the sub around three years ago. He was bored at work, and he was curious about how moderating worked. The rest is history!

As he always liked the original bone apple tea meme, when he saw that the name was free, ‘Bone Apple Tea’ was born.

He added that he had no modding experience so he thanked the mods that came on board and turned it into what it has become today. There are currently 15 mods who sift through hundreds of submissions a day from over 700K subscribers.

One of the moderators, Altrissa, explained that the mission statement of the community is to “highlight the number of malapropisms that exist in the world.”

She adds that English is one of the weirdest languages in human history, so the sub proves it. Altrissa even revealed some of the funniest malapropisms they have heard, which are usually the more immature ones: “Tonight tits” for tinnitus, “orgasmic blueberries” for organic blueberries, and “crushed Asians” for crustaceans.

Scroll down to check out all the ways poor spellers butchered the English language: