Mrs. Malaprop's mangled prose set a president. (English language blunders)

Mrs. Malaprop sails onto the stage in Act One, her spinnaker flying madly. At once she assails her niece, the lissome Lydia Languish, who has fallen for an apparently impecunious sailor. Lydia must promise to forget this fellow, Mrs. M. commands: "... illiterate him, I say, from your memory." Moreover, she warns, "Don't attempt to extirpate yourself from the matter; you know I have proof controvertible of it!" As The Rivals romps along, the dear dowager remarks that few gentlemen "know how to value the ineffectual qualities in a woman!" Lydia's affair has given Mrs. Malaprop the "hydrostatics." She is astonished at the girl's "insurance." Indeed, her niece is "as headstrong ...