I sometimes listen more carefully to how people say things than to what they mean to say. This drives some people (notably my wife) nuts, but it's probably unavoidable for a lover and professional student of language and its uses. I'm intrigued by how people use indirection, ambiguity, and conversational shorthand in their speech, how ethnic, subcultural, or vocational influences affect their language, and by the little quirks that that give everyday speech a vitality that writing struggles to attain.
A favorite linguistic phenomenon is what I call a "suggestive malapropism." This is when an incorrectly used word results in a phrase that, taken at face value, radically reconstrues the situation in which it was spoken in some comic or philosophically procative way. No examples come to mind offhand (in most situations, I'm terrible at improptu examples; this is especially embarrasing in front of a class), but I did run across a doozie in this feature piece from a New Hampshire newspaper about four friends on a daylong fishing trip.
Near the end of the piece, the writer gives an account of the day's conclusion:
Back at the truck we met up with Janet and Summer, who had also had a great evening of fishing. We shared a cold soda and recanted the events.
Though they say that any day on the water is a good one, I've had a few I wish I could recant.
From a strict etymological standpoint, you can recant statements but not actions. This is a shame; recanting is much easier than undoing. This Granite State angler, or perhaps a sleepy proofreader, extends a tantalizing impossibility.
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