From The Economist

...No longer mere buildings, these are “new residential typologies”....

I was prepared for “new residential topologies.”

I felt forcibly lectured after exposure to the word, “typologies.” (Not by the author of the article; rather by the originator of the phrase.)

I am reminded of “skid-talking” as outlined in an article, Are You a Skid-Talker? by Corey Ford, from Reader’s Digest, 1954. 

...The simplest kind of skid-talk consists of mixing words.  For example:

“Too many cooks in the soup.”

“From time immoral.”

“There I was, left holding the jackpot.”

“It was so dark you couldn’t see your face in front of you.”

“I want some hot-water juice and a lemon."…

My wife very occasionally does that. “Time to seize the nettle by the horns” was one of her classics. As was “I’ve got very high-pitched earsight.”

In the British sitcom, ”The Thin Blue Line” starring Rowan Atkinson, lines for actor David Haig, playing the character, “Detective Inspector Derek Grim” often contained such marvelous stuff.

Funny you should mention Atkinson. As soon as I read Dave’s comment on swish, I thought of a joke in one of his (Atkinson’s, not Dave’s) proto-Bean skits in which he says swish restaurant and someone thinks he says Swiss restaurant. It is an old-fashioned term… I’d be surprised to hear anyone under 50 use it.

Another pitfall for trans-Atlantic (or trans-Pacific) communication: in the US, swish as an adjective means effeminate and/or homosexual.

Japan has ‘one-room mansions’. I think a developer took British ‘mansion block’ (block of flats) and came up with something like Seaview Mansion(s) and Japanese assumed mansion meant flat and it caught on.
However, they are right in a way: In my Father’s house are many mansions (John 14:2) which meant room or dwelling place at the time of the KJV.

I think swishy means effeminate in Brit E. Swish is posh but is probably obsolete by now as is swishy come to that.

venomousbede - 01 September 2011 09:48 AM

I think swishy means effeminate in Brit E.

Not in my idiolect: and judging by this UK magazine headline, “Rhihanna switches up her swishy skirt”, not generally in BrE, either.

I think swishy also retains the meaning of “tending to swish” which is how it is used in that headline.