offended » offened

Classification: English – questionable – final d/t-deletion

Spotted in the wild:

  • Thanks to everyone for all the kind words about the NYT article and the move. And don’t be offened if I don’t get back to you right away. (link)
  • Vix, I apologize to you and any one else who was offened by my use of a slur to describe illegal immigrants (link)

[Edited by Ben Zimmer, 5 June 06: Marked questionable, since it’s unclear whether this is categorizable as an eggcorn. It would appear to be more of a back-formation, reanalyzing offend as offen + -ed. (Compare, for instance, the word mix, a historical back-formation from mixt.)]

| link | entered by Lee Rudolph, 2006/06/03 |

Commentaries

  1. 1

    Commentary by Isabel , 2006/07/05 at 5:04 pm

    Is there really any reason to believe that this isn’t just a typo?

  2. 2

    Commentary by Aaron Clements , 2006/08/15 at 7:16 pm

    Agreed. Seems more likely that the ‘d’ was simply omitted.

  3. 3

    Commentary by Alan , 2006/10/09 at 8:39 am

    I bet this eggcorn (offended/offened) is occasioned by the American habit of omitting consonants in speech: for example, “prinn-ed” for printed, “enn-er” for enter, etc.

  4. 4

    Commentary by Emily-Elizabeth , 2006/12/06 at 6:08 am

    This seems more like bad spelling than an actual Eggcorn.

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