deem » deign

Chiefly in:   deign worthy (of)

Classification: English

Spotted in the wild:

  • Most of the news aggregator screenshots I looked at seemed very complicated. I didn’t want to get in over my head, so I grabbed the simplest aggregator I could find (EffNews RSS Reader) and deigned it worthy of an install. Two minutes later, I was draggin’-‘n’-droppin’ RSS links and seeing what it could do. (link)
  • Since we’ve got a bit of a “2000” vibe going on in Emulation Zone this month, it’s worth taking a moment to once again celebrate one of the chief reasons that emulation is so great, namely the chance to finally play games which the software industry didn’t deign us worthy of ever being allowed to play legitimately, because we live in the wrong country. (link)
  • In 1604, Lord Honore II came to the throne and launched Monaco into its “Great Century”. Reflecting upon his accomplishments, he deigned himself worthy of a new title, Prince Honore II. Grimaldi rules have proudly held the title of Prince ever since. (visitmonaco.com)
  • Buz, you might have missed this, but the whole of Andya’s last post was dedicated to debunking this claim. Its a shame you don’t deign it worthy of a proper read and response, but I suppose the easy conclusion to draw is that you don’t to hear anything that might alter your pre-conceived notions of Islam, because your preconceived notions represent a caricature of reality, which allow you to vent your fury and feel self-righteous at the same time. (link)

Analyzed or reported by:

This is a slightly more complex eggcorn, since _deign_ (AHD4: “think it appropriate to one’s dignity; condescend”) and _worthy_ live in the same semantic field. The difference between the two expressions is that _deem_ can be used neutrally, as a synonym of _regard_ or _consider_, without implicating condescension.

There are indeed quite a number of occurrences of _deign (something) worthy_ that aren’t eggcorns, really, but blends with the syntactic form of _deem (something) worthy of (an action or attitude)_ and the sense of _deign to (do the action or express the attitude)_, e.g.:

* _I guess I’m supposed to be excited that somebody rich and famous has deigned us worthy of being our Governor._ (link)
* _Have to agree with arrogance of barstaff. Went in for lunch yesterday and barman was completely ignorant, once he deigned me worthy enough of service at all._ (link)

In these examples, _deem worthy_ would be possible, but the connotation of condescension would have been weakened.

| link | entered by Chris Waigl, 2005/02/28 |

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