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OpenSees Malapropisms

Original Post - 21 Oct 2025 - Michael H. Scott

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Whether it’s Yogi Berra describing switch hitters or Charles Shackleford remarking on his ability to sink shots right-handed or left-handed, “amphibious” was not the word these athletes were looking for to describe ambidexterity. This type of humorous mistake, from the misuse of similar sounding words, is known as a malapropism.

The best malapropisms come from genuine errors in oral communication or by way of overzealous auto-complete in written communication. But some malapropisms can veer into mockery or Freudian territory, or become inappropriate.

Despite the trysts, I came up with a few malapropisms related to OpenSees and structural analysis. Answers to the malapropisms are shown at the end of the post.

1. The OpenSees source code is in a GitHub suppository.
2. A hysterical model would simulate the cyclic behavior well.
3. That AI-generated LinkedIn post about OpenSees was non-sensual.
4. The shake table is in the engineering lavatory.
5. Make a pool request when you want to contribute code to OpenSees.
6. For warping, each node needs an extra disease of freedom.
7. Due to an inconsistent tangent, the residual norms are erotic.
8. The model could not handle a farce of 100 kips.
9. Finite element analysis comes down to equilibrium, compatibility, and restitution.
10. A small pertination of the parameters leads to a huge change in response.
11. We should run an incidental dynamic analysis.
12. The beamWithHinges command was defecated in OpenSeesPy until PR #932.
13. You can design a runway slab like it’s a beam.
14. With a non-singular equilibrium matrix, the model is statically determined.
15. The dispBeamColumn element is based on cubic permission polynomials.
16. The coupling beam is connected to two rigid leaks.

The other malapropisms I came up with felt too forced and ended up in the discord pile.

If you have any malapropisms you’d like to share, post them in the comments section.

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Answers

1. suppository -> repository
2. hysterical -> hysteretic
3. non-sensual -> non-sensical
4. lavatory -> laboratory
5. pool -> pull
6. disease -> degree
7. erotic -> erratic
8. farce -> force
9. restitution -> constitution
10. pertination -> perturbation
11. incidental -> incremental
12. defecated -> deprecated
13. runway -> one-way
14. determined -> determinate
15. permission -> Hermitian
16. leaks -> links

Additional malapropisms

• 🚨 New paper alerts 🚨 have become extremely compunctory.
  perfunctory
• No, let’s keep using a consternated plasticity model.
  concentrated