What common sayings have you heard people mis-quote?

Question

For instance, my friend says she used to "wear my sister's handy-downs." (Instead of Hand-me-downs). Another lady I know complained about me seeing her house dirty by saying "what swallow we live in." (instead of SQUALOR).

Answer 1

'For all intents and purposes' was 'for all intense purposes', and 'Going the extra mile' has slipped pretty far from it's original biblical meaning that you'd look weird using the phrase in the civil not-quite-disobedience way it was used there--now it means doing more than expected.

Answer 2

These are known as malapropisms, after Mrs Malaprop in Henry Fielding's "Joseph Andrews". Some of them are very endearing, such as (then) my toddler son referring to a bull as a "cow boy" and later on referring to a youth hostel as a "news hospital". His brother used to call the programme "The Dukes of Hazzard" "The Dukes of Harrods", which gave it an arisocratic twist. Here is a list: http://www.fun-with-words.com/malapropisms.html

Answer 3

A cement sidewalk. Would be real dusty, I say. ~
Using decimate instead of annihilate.

Answer 4

A very common one is "do or die".
The correct one is "do and die".
It' s from Tennyson's "The charge of the light brigade":
Theirs not to reason why
Theirs but to do and die...

Answer 5

My son says "make hens meet" instead of "make ENDS meet".