It wasn't Dickens--as I thought. My brother first told me about them--

AI Overview

The character

Mrs. Malaprop was invented by Irish playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan for his 1775 comedy, The Rivals, becoming famous for her comical misuse of words (a trait now known as a malapropism) and inspiring the term for such linguistic errors.

Key Details:

Playwright: Richard Brinsley Sheridan.

Play: The Rivals (1775).

Character Trait: She consistently uses words that sound similar to the correct ones but have different, often absurd, meanings (e.g., "as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile"). another e.g--the pineapple of success.

Origin of Name: Sheridan likely took her name from the French phrase mal à propos, meaning "inappropriate" or "poorly placed".

Legacy: Her linguistic blunders led to the word "malapropism" (or "malaprop") to describe this type of error, with the first recorded use by Lord Byron in 1814.