foot-in-mouth disease

English

Etymology

Humorous conflation of foot-and-mouth disease and put one's foot in one's mouth.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈfʊɾ.ɪnˌmaʊθ dəzˈiz/, /- dɪzˈiz/, [ˈɸʊɾ-]

• Audio (US)

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• Audio (AU)

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Noun

foot-in-mouth disease (uncountable)

1. (idiomatic, humorous) A tendency to make remarks that are embarrassingly wrong or inappropriate.
   • 2000, Marvin Rubinstein, Net-wit.com:

     They attempt to straddle all issues and, consequently, when a slip occurs, the result is foot-in-mouth disease.

   • 2004, Craig Jutila, 2-Minute Encouragers for Teachers, page 48:

     Maybe you suffer from foot-in-mouth disease, too, at least occasionally. If so, then I expect you've also learned about the remedy.

Translations

tendency

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 口不擇言／口不择言 (zh) (kǒubúzéyán)

• Finnish: tapa möläyttää
• German: no equivalent term in German, but see von einem Fettnäpfchen ins Nächste treten (verb)
• Romanian: please add this translation if you can