Topic: Goodman Aiskowitz
Goodman Aiskowitz was born on this date in 1899. Who was Goodman Aiskowitz? He was the radio actor, writer, and columnist better remembered as Goodman Ace. Together with his wife Jane, Ace created and starred in Easy Aces, a long-running radio comedy whose translation into television was less successful. Ace called TV "a clever contraction derived from the words Terrible Vaudeville" and went on to label it "our latest medium" before confiding, "[w]e call it a medium because nothing is well done."
But let's go back to the radio series that made Goodman Ace a household name. That domestic comedy featured his wife saying such classic lines as the double-entendre "I am his awfully-wedded wife;" the philosophic "home wasn't built in a day;" and the pragmatic "the chickens have come home to roast."
Wordlovers and wits know such word twists are named malapropisms after Mrs. Malaprop, the similarly misspeaking character in Richard Sheridan's stage play The Rivals. Radio actress Jane Ace updated the usually unintentionally humorous misuse or distortion of a word or phrase from the 18th century to the 20th century when she proudly proclaimed herself "a ragged individualist" and offered up a bemused "you could have knocked me down with a fender."
Questions or comments? Write us at wftw@aol.com Production and research support for Word for the Wise comes from Merriam-Webster, publisher of language reference books and Web sites including Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition.
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