tenure(d) » ten year

Chiefly in:   ten-year track position , ten year professor

Variant(s):  ten-year

Classification: English

Spotted in the wild:

Analyzed or reported by:

_Ten year_ suggests a long time — most likely the time a candidate has to invest to obtain such a position (esp. in _ten-year track position_).

Many thanks to Pat Schwieterman, who dug up Ken Lakritz’s original posting. The eggcorn was also suggested, without specific examples, by Jennifer Sexton in a different comment thread.

| link | entered by Chris Waigl, 2006/05/21 |

Commentaries

  1. 1

    Commentary by Marnen Laibow-Koser , 2006/07/21 at 6:45 pm

    “Though I am now a practicing attorney and a ten year professor of management…” — I’m not sure this person meant “tenured”, as in this context the meaning “I have been a professor for 10 years” makes at least as much sense. Is it possible to tell from the larger context?

  2. 2

    Commentary by Ed Korn , 2006/08/10 at 10:37 pm

    At Hampshire College, tenure does not exist. Instead, faculty are eventually granted “ten year” contracts which function as Hampshire’s version of “tenure.” Many deliberately plays with that eggcorn.

  3. 3

    Commentary by Jason Gohlke , 2006/08/12 at 12:50 am

    Also, consider that it appears in a meeting transcript. It seems much more likely a transcription error than an “eggcorn.” [Sorry — it’s too new for me to not put it in quotation marks.]

  4. 4

    Commentary by James Crippen , 2006/09/20 at 4:08 am

    One example of conciously playing with this eggcorn is when referring to a “ten-yeared” grad student. The implication is that the grad student has been attending but ungraduated for such a long time that their institution has given up and granted them tenure. There are one or two in my department…

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