Exactly What I Meant to Say

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Dialogue coach: Up and ATOM! Rainer Wolfcastle: Up and AT THEM! —This scene from The Simpsons

The verbal equivalent of Exactly What I Aimed At, this is when a character deliberately says one thing, and is mistaken for having meant to say another thing. Cue another character wrongfully "correcting" them.

A sub-variety of this is things that are mistaken for misspellings or mispronounciations, but these aren't the only cases.

Examples of Exactly What I Meant to Say include:

Comic Books

• In Batman: Legends Of The Dark Knight #128 (collected in The Ring, the Arrow and the Bat), the Goo-Goo Godlike religious leader of a Fictional Country tells a treacherous general that he will be "safed". The general corrects his pronounciation of "saved", but the boy insists that's what he meant. Five minutes later, the general is hit by a falling safe.

Literature

• In the novel Freaky Friday, Annabel's friend Boris has problems breathing through his nose, and when he offers to "bake a beetloaf" for dinner, she assumes he means "make a meatloaf". He doesn't. (Also, his name is actually Morris, but that's a case of Annabel failing to correct for his pronunciation.)

Live Action TV

• Mr. Rumbold from Are You Being Served? would sometimes get the wrong idea of a word. For example the sales staff had the verb "to knee" meaning "press one's knee in the armhole of a suit to loosen a few threads so as to make it fit the customer better." Thus creating this exchange:

Mr. Lucas: You see, it was like this, you see, Sir. Erm, Mr. Humphries kneed the jacket. Mr. Rumbold: Ah! You mean, Mr. Humphries needed the jacket. Let's get our tenses right. Mr. Humphries: No, no, you don't understand, Sir. You see, I kneed the jacket. Mr. Rumbold: You need it now? Mr. Humphries: No, I kneed it then. Mr. Rumbold: You mean, you needed it then. Captain Peacock: If I might clarify the situation, Sir. Mr. Rumbold: Thank you, Captain Peacock. It does seem to have got rather out of hand. Captain Peacock: Yes. It's a matter of spelling, Sir. Mr. Rumbold: Spelling? Captain Peacock: Yes Sir. You spelled kneed with an N. Mr. Humphries was using a K. Mr. Rumbold: Oh, you mean like kneading dough? Is that it, Mr. Lucas? Mr. Lucas: Yes, that's it. I needed the dough, but he didn't want the jacket because it was too tight. Mr. Rumbold: So you kneaded it to make it more supple, which was why you needed the jacket, you may recall Captain Peacock. That is what I said in the first place. Captain Peacock: Nearly right, Sir, yes. But what they're trying to explain, Sir, is that, erm... and coming from Hardware, you would not be aware of this, but there is a method used, and I disapprove of it myself, Sir. There is a method used to enlarge the arm holes of jackets, and the method used is to knee the jacket... with a K. Mr. Rumbold: I am aware of how you spell jacket, Captain Peacock.

• There is a Monty Python's Flying Circus sketch invoving a man who cannot pronounce the letter 'C' (his 'C's coming out as 'B's) that includes this exchange:

Tourist: Yes I'm sorry I can't say the letter 'B' Bounder: C? Tourist: Yes that's right. It's all due to a trauma I suffered when I was a spoolboy. I was attacked by a bat. Bounder: A cat? Tourist: No, a bat.

• • Another Monty Python example is a sketch about a person who sometimes ends his sentences with the wrong fusebox.

Burrows: It's so embarrassing when my wife and I go to an orgy. Thripshaw: A party? Burrows: No, an orgy. We live in Esher. Thripshaw: Quite.

• On Cheers Norm's favorite restaurant is the Hungry Heifer, which specializes in cheap food. One time he got Cliff to go with him.

Norm: Cliffy had himself the "Ton O' T-Bone". For less than four bucks you get 24 ounces of USDA Choice bef. Cliff: Bef? No, you mean beef. Norm: Beef? Don't be ridiculous, Cliffy. That stuff is bef. You see it's a Hungry Heifer trademark for a processed, synthetic, meat-like substance. Cliff: Ah, no. Norm: What do you expect for four bucks? You see me complainin' about the loobster?

• In Green Acres ("It's Human to Be Humane"), Lisa asks Oliver to play "Scribble, Cabbage, or Monotony", and he assumes it's one of her Malapropisms. Later, Mr. Drucker tries to sell him those same games, which apparently do exist in Hooterville.

Video Games

• When you talk about the "magick" in the game Eternal Darkness people who aren't familiar with it will often attempt to correct you, or edit you.

Web Comics

• This issue of Xkcd comics, when someone "pleads the third."

Interrogator: You mean the fifth? Black Hat Guy: No, the third. Interrogator: You refuse to quarter troops in your house?

• In The Order of the Stick, during Roy's duel with Thog in the arena:

Roy: I don't care how strong you are, thug. Thog: thog's name is thog. Roy: I didn't misspeak.

Western Animation

• Another Simpsons one:

Bart: I'd be happy to do this one pro-boner. Skinner: You mean, "pro bono". Bart: I know what I said.

• • Another yet:

Homer: Nucular. It's pronounced nucular.

• From an episode of Danger Mouse:

Colonel K: Danger Mouse! Wales is being devastated by a giant fire-breathing dragon! Penfold: No, no, Colonel, it's "whales are being devastated."

Real Life

• Real life: Tell someone that an anime was Macekred and sometimes they'll say, "Don't you mean massacred?"
• Stage critic George Jean Nathan belittled Tallulah Bankhead for her playing in what he called Queen of the Nil: "no e, please, Mr. Printer; don't make something out of nothing."