How to post
Every registered user can post eggcorns and _(if the software works as it should)_ edit entries made by users the same “user level” or lower. Confirmed and reliable contributors will be given higher privileges.
For active participation, some **basic rules** apply:
1. Improve, edit and supplement, but don’t destroy.
2. Credit your sources. If you cite a dictionary entry, say where it is from.
2. Watch your language: On this site, we will **not** belittle people who have used or are using eggcorns. There is room enough on the internet for projects that are not, unlike many excellent sites, pedagogical. Don’t call eggcorn users or uses “shocking”, “illiterate”, or “horrible”, or otherwise express your disgust. These feelings are fine with me — I am sometimes taken aback or even appalled, too. This site is simply not the place to voice them.
2. For your usage examples, prefer well-written passages. Yes, there is quite a bit of decently written prose that, nevertheless, contains eggcorns. Links to sites that are likely to stay online and valid for some time are better than already abandoned-looking ones.
3. Trusted users with administrative privileges, and myself, reserve the right to delete comments, posts or passages that are off-topic, and to edit entries. The model for a post is a dictionary entry.
4. Disruptive users will, of course, be banned.
To post entries as a registered user, you only need to observe two rules: supply a valid email address (it will never be displayed on the site), and respect the posting format.
The following is a step-by-step tutorial on how to enter a new eggcorn entry:
1. Once you have registered (use the name under which you want your entries to appear) and are logged in, you are directly taken to the posting screen (Write > Write Post).
2. You can go to
2. In the Write > Write Post screen, put your eggcorn in the **Eggcorn** (=Title) field. If it is an expression, enter the smallest unit that is coherent and makes sense (if possible, one word). For example for the eggcorn _wheel barrow > wheel barrel_ we use _barrel_ as the eggcorn title.
2. Next, hit the button **Save and Continue Editing** next to the title field.
3. Then, on the right, tick the category(ies) your eggcorn belongs in (”English” is preselected; add “genuine”, “hidden”, “nearly mainstream” or “questionable”).
4. The eggcorn data is added via pre-defined “Custom Fields”. “Custom Fields” must be entered **one by one**, hitting **Add Custom Field** each time a field is entered.
4. Add new eggcorn data by selecting keys in the dropdown menu marked “Key” and typing or pasting text in the **value** field on the right. Then hit **Add Custom Field**.
4. Several “Custom Fields” are required for your entry to make sense:
**original** — the accepted, mainstream, standard English equivalent of your eggcorn (some would say the “correct term”) goes into the “value” field on the right. In our _wheel barrow>wheel barrel example_, this is _barrow_.
**occurrence\_text** & **occurrence\_reference** — Type or paste an example sentence or passage that contains the eggcorn in the “value” field that belongs to **occurrence\_text**. (Then select the key **occurrence\_text** and click on **Add Custom Field**.) This is supposed to be a genuine usage example, not a pun or a joke. **Always** add a reference (key **occurrence\_reference**) — cite your source. The reference can be an URL, an URL with some text (which will be the title of the link), or text only.
If you are entering a new eggcorn, add at least the following fields: **original** and one pair of **occurrence\_text** and **occurrence\_reference**.
4. You can add several usage examples, but always in the following order: first **occurrence\_text** — first **occurrence\_reference** — second **occurrence\_text** — second **occurrence\_reference** etc. (otherwise the software will get confused and the references will be mixed up.)
6. Other fields are optional or only required in particular cases:
**in\_expression**: Use this if your eggcorn occurs typically as part of a particular expression. In the _wheel barrow_ > _wheel barrel_ example, _wheel barrel_ was entered under **in\_expression**. You can add several expressions for one eggcorn: one by one, always hitting **Add Custom Field** after each of them.
**alternative**, for multi-faceted eggcorns that appear in various spellings. Add all alternatives at once, separated by commas.
**analysis\_or\_report\_author** & **analysis\_or\_report\_reference**: If someone else has discovered, documented and/or analyzed the eggcorn, name the person (key: **analysis\_or\_report\_author**) and add the URL (plus an optional title as text) as a reference (key: **analysis\_or\_report\_reference**).
7. Finally, you can use the text area marked **Additional remarks & analysis** either to summarize what others have written or said about your eggcorn (link to their pages, if possible), or to supply your own brief analysis of the linguistic phenomena involved. The text in the “Post” field can be in XHTML, or — easier — in [Markdown](daringfireball.net/projec…).
8. If you are unsure whether your entry will look like, or confused about the user interface, simply hit **Save**. Your entry will not appear in public, but be visible to the other users and, ultimately and if suitable, edited and added.
7. If you are sure you have done everything correctly, click on **Publish**. You can always edit your eggcorn later, but from this moment on, your contribution will be visible to the world.
8. To enter another eggcorn, click on the tab labelled **Write Post**.
Okay, this probably sounds pretty obscure and complicated. I am sorry — remaking the posting back-end into an easy-to-use form is an important improvement I plan to implement. Unfortunately, there is quite a bit of coding involved in this, and I am learning as I proceed. Still, try it out. Maybe you find that by doing, the steps actually make sense and are workable enough.
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Commentary by Genevieve Batchelor , 2005/03/20 at 10:49 am
1. I am appalled by how many people in New Zealand say could ‘of’ should of, would of, instead of could ‘have’, should have, would have. They write it as well.
2. Pacific instead of Specific.