midst » mist
Spotted in the wild:
- “well, in the mist of all of this with [name of spouse with cancer] I had fell and hit my head…” ()
From Larry Horn, on ADS-L, 22 February 2005:
from a contributor to a cancer survivors and caretakers support group:…
Whether this was a typo for “in the midst of” or a reanalysis isn’t entirely knowable. But since the “all of this” in the context refers to the murky complexity of misdiagnoses, denial of coverage, etc. etc., I suspect the “mist” is in fact a reanalysis/eggcorn.
To which Jon Lighter added the invented example:
“In the mist of life we are in death.”
1
Commentary by Michael McKernan , 2006/01/20 at 9:02 pm
See the Eggcorn Forum for my discussion of FADE INTO THE MIDST (MIST), which looks at this word pair substituted in the opposite direction. I found far more exx. of this than midst rendered as mist, and a number of the exx. seem to me to be clearly reanalyzed to the point where ‘mist’ would no longer serve for the chosen [fade into the] ‘midst.’
2
Commentary by Terry Anderson , 2006/08/29 at 6:58 pm
I received an e-mail from a co-worker apologizing for her slow response by explaining that “I am in the mist of moving my office, and am really behind on my e-mail.”