Contribute!
It would be particularly satisfying if The Eggcorn Database became, little by little, a collaborative tool.
There are several ways for you to help improve or support it, to contribute your knowledge, insight, discoveries or resources:
- Drop off your eggcorns in the Eggcorn Forum. You have captured an eggcorn in the wild? Excellent! Mind you, check that it is the right species of animal. Ask yourself whether the non-standard spelling that caught your attention indicates a reinterpretation of the meaning of (part of) the original expression. If so, in the database it goes. But if you are unsure, the forum is the right place to discuss whether your find is an eggcorn or not. The posts referenced on the About page might also be helpful.
- Commentaries on individual entries are, of course, welcome. Unlike the forum, however, the comment area is not a discussion space: It is a place to add data to an existing entry. If you wish to post whimsical observations or questions, or something that is not closely related to a particular entry, please do so in the Eggcorn Forum.
If you are committed to the eggcorn quest and have a taste for adventure, you can register and post draft entries of your own. These will be found and edited by the more experienced contributors. Eventually your submission will appear under your name. Once you have shown that you produce high-quality entries, we will give you full poster status.
Posting directly into the database is not quite as simple as leaving a comment or participating on the forum. The posting back-end is not particularly user-friendly and still needs a lot of work. I consider this project as work in progress (thus the “alpha” version label on the main page), and will add features and improvements as I figure out the needs and get more familiar with coding in PHP. If you wish to familiarize yourself with the process, you can read the Posting HOWTO.
If you appreciate this site and the effort that has gone into creating and maintaining it, a supportive e-mail to eggcorns@lascribe.net is always welcome. Or, in case you can spare a dollar (pound, euro) or two towards hosting fees and bandwidth, I will gratefully accept a donation. The Eggcorn Database is a purely personal endeavor and is not supported by any institution or commercial entity whatsoever.
Happy eggcorn-hunting,
Chris Waigl
(eggcorns@lascribe.net)
**NEW, 2005/10/25!** Changes are afoot at the Eggcorn Database. There is now a forum, with its own space for your contributions and submissions.
While I upgrade the software and work out some problems with the server, I have disabled commenting on the static pages, i.e. those that aren’t part of the eggcorn collection. The existing comments will reappear as soon as I have worked out a persistent bug with the comment display. This page has over 700 comments — some part of the code is choking on them at the moment.
Furthermore, I have disabled direct posting access to the Eggcorn Database for newly registered users. Several of us — Arnold Zwicky, Ben Zimmer, and several occasional contributors in addition to myself — have converged to what could be called a minimum standard of quality for entries. Our own early posts haven’t always conformed to it, and I have edited and improved quite a number of them. More importantly, we seem to agree reasonably well on what exactly an eggcorn is, and what kind of common word substitutions and lexical errors aren’t really of the type we are looking for. The new forum should make it easier to further refine the definition and to bring new posters up to speed.
330
Commentary by Ken Lakritz , 2005/04/09 at 8:51 pm
‘ivory league’ for ‘ivy league.’ Confusion with the ivory tower? examples-
I am a PhD student at an Ivory League university.
www.blackamericaweb.com/s… bawnews/testing1109?view=Forum&message_id=24995
His brilliant mind brought him to the east-coast ivory league Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the late 1970’s.
www.plausiblefutures.com/…
… postmodern theory hegemony in tertiary institutions; rigorously exposing the egos and eccentricities that still roam the corridors of the ivory league. …
home.vicnet.net.au/~ozlit…
329
Commentary by Ken Lakritz , 2005/04/09 at 7:42 pm
‘undermind’ for ‘undermine.’ ‘Undermind’ seems to be used as a verb at least 1,000 times on google, and especialy to express sabotage of cognitive or ideational structures. e.g.,
Although Dana tries desperately to undermind Natalie’s confidence, Natalie has a great interview and gets an offer with a higher salary. …
sportsnight.tktv.net/Epis…
The voting system is one area we can afford to let stay low tech - but Diebold wants to undermind this basic truth by claiming copyright foul. …
www.wecs.com/content.htm
… and I had a feeling that when serious studies were done, as in this Science paper, they would tend to undermind political correctness …
home.houston.rr.com/skept…
This Barthian attempt to undermind the rational in religion is one of the perils of our time.
www.stanford.edu/…/publ… vol1/491123-ThePlaceofReasonandExperienceinFindingGod.htm
Camus was responding, not only to the philosophical movements in the sciences which seemed to undermind all notion of determination of cause, …
www.murdoch.edu.au/…/mu… formated_speeches/Counterpoint/CounterpointforumSept79.doc
328
Commentary by Pierre Abbat , 2005/04/09 at 1:52 pm
tubal ligation -> tubal litigation
jintajungu.ghostchild.com…
These Abo women certainly have a case, but the operation is still ligation.
327
Commentary by Ken Lakritz , 2005/04/09 at 7:05 am
‘parternity’ for ‘paternity.’ This odd construction appears an astonishing 28,000 times on google. I think it combines ‘paternity’ with ‘partner’ or ‘parent’ or both. Oddly, though, the no more outlandish ‘partnerity’ and ‘parentity’ are both rare. examples-
My husband established parternity in March of 2003. … paying on his own (according to our state guidelines) since the parternity results came back.
www.childcustody.org/chil…
This website covers issues on adoption, child custody, welfare programs, legal guardianship, parternity testing, and more!
www.utdallas.edu/~tms0142…
Your friend nonetheless wishes to continue his parent-child relationship with his daughter after the divorce, despite his non-parternity.
answers.google.com/answer…
…has codified the birth certificate process enabling couples to establish their parental status of the child without a parternity/adoption process. …
www.surrogacy.com/Article…
326
Commentary by Ken Lakritz , 2005/04/09 at 3:51 am
‘halter monitor’ for ‘Holter monitor.’ The Holter monitor, invented by Dr. Norman Holter, is a wearable device for continuously monitoring heart rhythm. To some, it resembles a halter (2,000 google refs). examples-
Yes, it’s a cardiac halter monitor… they strapped one on me for 7 days when I was pregnant with Sarah, because I was at increased risk. …
www.adventurejournalist.c…
I have had to wear a halter monitor before too. I even went bowling with mine on, very uncomfortable.
www.pr3d4t0r.com/archives…
It resembles a lifejacket and serves as a backpack to carry a halter monitor.
www.texaschildrenshospita…
325
Commentary by Nigel Pond , 2005/04/09 at 3:47 am
Re 322: Ken, “Tower of Babble” may be almost mainstream in the US but I don’t think it is in the UK - -in fact the first time I heard it was when I moved to the US in 1995.
324
Commentary by Chris , 2005/04/09 at 3:46 am
Somewhen. (think ’somehow’; ’somewhere’; etc.) A rather nice concoction from a German friend. Und warum nichts?
323
Commentary by Jonathan Stieglitz , 2005/04/08 at 7:29 pm
people use unconscious when they mean to write subconscious. like here- “Kimkim4984 (2:23:39 PM): i tell u over and over it was a completely unconscious decision i made and u know it was”
322
Commentary by Ken Lakritz , 2005/04/08 at 6:33 am
‘tower of babble’ for ‘tower of babel.’
An eggcorn in its day, but now nearly mainstream; it’s the title of numerous books, films, and a comic strip.
321
Commentary by Ken Lakritz , 2005/04/08 at 6:02 am
‘maleviolent’ for ‘malevolent.’ Also, less commonly, ‘male violent.’ 500+ google citations. I’m unsure how many of these are malapropisms vs. eggcorns, although violent themes do seem to turn up a lot. e.g.,
Some of the time the bad guy is so maleviolent that they are intending to kill
everyone including themselves and their evil maties.
www.gamingw.net/articles/…
If I am feeling maleviolent, fight songs are in order.
www.roleplay-online.com/m… file=posting&mode=topicreview&t=447&popup=1
I am less of a warrior now, and more of a wandering, maleviolent spirit of strife…
forum.nuklearpower.com/sh…
… The tallest and toughest-looking of the three said, “Yeah, sure”, with a male violent little smile.
www.puebloadvocacy.com/ja… - 28k - Cached - Similar pages
Bottle trees were for protection from male violent or evil spirits.
danenet.wicip.org/wwlw/qf… - 12k - Cached - Similar pages