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.
410
Commentary by Jim Hunziker , 2005/05/31 at 11:16 pm
I found this on a mobile phone site: holdster. Apparently this is because a holster holds your phone!
Found on
www.v710.org/forums/showt…
409
Commentary by JC Dill , 2005/05/31 at 1:53 am
Towed -> toad.
When another vehicle is towed behind an RV, the adjective “towed” has been morphed into the noun toad.
www.rvclub.com/rving_faq/…
“Many people feel more comfortable driving a motorhome than pulling a trailer or fifth wheel (at least when they don’t have a toad behind them).”
408
Commentary by Arthaey Angosii , 2005/05/24 at 11:03 pm
I came across “one off” instead of “one-of” twice just today. I’ve lost the link to the first one, but the other is from tagsonomy.com/index.php/d… — “The Ajax article may be a one off.”
407
Commentary by Carl Sneyd , 2005/05/23 at 6:00 pm
2 examples I think, from Robert Doherty’s novel, “Bodyguard of Lies”
“…securing them with specially sown-in bands of Velcro” and the ever popular “make due”.
406
Commentary by Katy Jennison , 2005/05/23 at 3:26 pm
New one? “A wolf in cheap clothing” was heard by Gervase Finn, UK writer and broadcaster, who remarked on it on BBC Radio 4’s “Quote Unquote” programme last week.
405
Commentary by Ken Lakritz , 2005/05/23 at 3:51 am
‘implaceable’ for ‘implacable.’
This is a written, rather than an aural eggcorn; the 2 words look similar on the page but sound different (or would, if anyone tried to pronounce ‘implaceable.’) It’s a fairly common substitution. Examples-
…as Izo gradually realises he has been used and then discarded, his once rock steady loyalty to Hampeita moves to an implaceable fury and sadness. …
www.koroshiya.co.uk/gosha…
… The Eldar have never pretended to be “good-guys” in the 40k universe, in fact they are one of the most implaceable races in the game. …
forums.relicnews.com/arch…
…one of the most cherished beliefs of the Founding Fathers — that a permanent and powerful military caste is the implaceable foe of democracy. …
loadedmouth.com/node/30
It stepped forward on its cloven hooves, and stared at her in implaceable hunger.
stormlight.mythopoetica.c…
The man, his eye, is watching with implaceable determination.
www.ossip-zadkine.com/oss…
Often we can point to reasons, but many of us are plagued by an implaceable, ghostly melancholy: the tyrannical bitterness of our everyday lives.
altjeringa.tripod.com/rep…
In the hands of an implaceable rider, a steed could be unperturbed by the most horrific sights; …
exalted.xi.co.nz/wiki/wik…
… the show with T’Pol spazzing out was a brilliant idea to shock the viewer by showing an implaceable and stoic character going crazy and acting abnormal. …
www.subspacebbs.com/forum…
404
Commentary by Ken Lakritz , 2005/05/23 at 3:22 am
’skin milk’ for ’skimmed milk.’
‘Skimmed milk’ long ago morphed into ’skim milk’ but that isn’t an eggcorn. However, the further transition of ’skim milk’ to ’skin milk’ seems to be. (I suspect that the idea is that it’s something you drink to be skinny.) Note also that this is a converse eggcorn to #400 above. Examples:
Blend soft fruit like bananas, strawberries or canned fruit with skin milk, yogurt and ice for a frothy fruit smoothie. …
www.healthyactive.gov.au/…
…or the equivalent of a turkey sandwich, piece of fruit, and a glass of skin milk per day. …
www.kidsnutrition.org/con…
A ½ cup serving is approximately equal to ½ low-fat milk exchange when made with water and one low-fat milk exchange when made with skin milk.
www.edietshop.com/onlines…
… Dairy products: Low-fat (1%) or skin milk, low-fat or nonfat yogurt and cheeses…
www.estronaut.com/a/contr…
… The bacteria was stored in skinmilk at 20oC and, when used, it was plated on solid M9 medium (12) with caffeine (0.3 g/l) as the only source of carbon …
www.scielo.br/scielo.php?…
403
Commentary by Nicholas W , 2005/05/22 at 3:31 pm
“Speciality” for “specialty”:
The other speciality of this “tendency” is to red-bait.
About 5 million Google hits, as compared to 42 million for “specialty.” I’ve never seen an explicit folk etymology for the variant spelling, but I’d imagine that it’s formed on analogy with “real”/”reality”, “technical”/”technicality”, etc.
(But many of the Google hits seem to be European; is “speciality” standard British English?)
402
Commentary by Sheilagh Casey , 2005/05/21 at 4:32 pm
skim of my teeth
I worked with a woman who always used this eggcorn.
Found a link to a written instance on google: www.blurty.com/community/…
401
Commentary by Marc , 2005/05/20 at 6:11 pm
“Tenamount” => “Tantamount”
Google agrees