Arnold Zwicky's Blog

In the NYT on the 2nd, in “To Venezuelans, Heir of Chávez Is a Poor Copy” by William Neuman, this anecdote:

In one of his most infamous verbal flubs, in August, [Venezuelan president Nicolás] Maduro sought to make a reference to the biblical story of Jesus’ multiplying the loaves and fishes — only to have it come out of his mouth as “the multiplication of the penises.” Mr. Maduro apparently conflated “peces” (fish) and “panes” (loaves) to produce “penes” (penises). He quickly apologized and corrected himself, but the damage was done.

“A person who doesn’t know how to speak will never know how to run a country,” said Jorge Flores, 30, a messenger at a government-run hospital, who voted for Mr. Maduro but now bitterly regrets doing so.

A perfectly ordinary inadvertent blend, but one with an especially laughable result.

This entry was posted on October 4, 2013 at 9:51 am and is filed under Blends, Errors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.