These are actually malapropisms from Archie Bunker’s character in “All in The Family” but I consider malapropisms to be a similar type of humor.
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“A witness shall not bear falsies against thy neighbor.” (false witness)
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“A woman doctor is only good for women’s problems…like your groinocology.” (gynecologist)
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“A menstrual show.” (minstrel)
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The flood damage was so bad they had to evaporate the city." (evacuate)
Happy Days had a similar one. I’ll paraphrase from memory. Fonzie was on the stand for a trial of some sort.
He says “I stand on the 5th commandment.”
Lawyer: “You mean 5th amendment?”
Fonzie: “Whatever. I have the right not to incinerate myself.”
macarley - Did you know that the term malapropism comes from a 1775 play called “The Rivals” by Richard Sheridan wherein a character called Mrs Malaprop frequently made these types of mistakes.
I don’t think I’d ever heard that. I see them occasionally in the Frank and Ernest comics.
When my husband and I lived in Manhattan, during the seventies and eighties, we had a subscription for the classic stage company which produced classic plays. That was where I first saw a production of “The Rivals” and was surprised to learn that the term malapropism came from a character in that play.
This one is funny as hell.