Malapropisms of the Day

George sends us the following amusing malapropisms:

In 1974, the fire chief of Terre Haute, Indiana, was meeting with his workers at the scene of an overturned tank car, only fifty feet from an Indiana State University dormitory. The situation was tense, because the car was full of vinyl chloride, an extremely explosive subtance.

The chief broke the tension, at least for nearby reporters, when he attempted to instruct the men to take a break, and then return to the scene at a specific hour. He announced, "Okay, men, let's circumcise our watches!"

And then this one:

Here's one my wife encountered as an assistant professor of mathematics education at St. Mary of the Woods College, also in Terre Haute. The geometry class was working with compasses, when one girl raised her hand.

"Professor Eisele, would you please go over that again. How do you circumcise a circle?" she asked.

My wife didn't hesitate."

"Very carefully!" she replied, as the other students broke up laughing.