Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
Over 1100 raw hits for “pompous grass.” (This post was inspired by Peter Forster’s excellent post on “Pampers grass” earlier today.) Pampas grass has long, white plumes which are indeed rather showy; as the first citation below notes, they can look a bit “pompous.” Examples
It is next to a stand of pompous grass in the back yard of the cabin we lived in, in Mount Shasta. The pompous grass, witch is the kind with the big pompous plumes, is situated on the south west corner on a clearing of grassy lawn.
http://chas96099.tripod.com/Willderness … id=1142256
I have planted pompous grass 2 years ago and some have died and the others are not growing as good as last year they are smaller. the kind i bought they were to grow tall .
http://www.ubcbotanicalgarden.org/forum … php?t=9148
Pompous grass alias pampass grass alias Prince of Whales feathers (I do agree, this sounds a bit strange anatomically). Interesting…
http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/photo- … it-nz.html
My new pompous grass is about 5 feet high and half dead looking after this winter.. Do I just cut the entire plant stocks down?
http://www.helpfulgardener.com/phpBB2/v … 3d816aa610
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Has Pat turned his skills to cartooning?
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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Just one of many instances of “papas grass”
https://www.travelblog.org/Photos/227662
You can get why people would hear and then use a more familiar word. What they think it means is another thing; plants’ names don’t have to make much sense I suppose.
On the plain in Spain where it mainly rains.
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Juan says
What they think it means is another thing; plants’ names don’t have to make much sense I suppose.
He was talking about papas grass of course; I would guess they think the connection is to papa and either the plural -s or more likely the possessive -’s. As Juan is suggesting (I think), the gap between either of those and any reasonable connection to the kind of grass is pretty deep and wide.
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Pompous grass, as Pat suggests, makes sense a bit more easily: it is a showy kind of plant. For some of us it is a sort of double eggcorn (like eggcorn itself perhaps): pampa-s vs. pomp-ous
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The suffix -ous shows up on some other eggcorns too: one I have seen often over the years and just ran into again was ignoramous , a spelling rather than a pronunciation eggcorn. It is used sometimes as a noun (equivalent in meaning to (an) ignoramus , and sometimes as an adjective (usually translatable as ignorant or stupid , describing people, but also ideas or statements, etc., as limited / motivated by ignorance.)
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Noun
a brief history of famous mathematical curves. OK, not so famous that I have heard of most of them, but the site is great fun even for an ignoramous like me!
Boyo, you are such an ignoramous. Can’t you learn to shut your mouth while you chew your food?
CARRIE, can you read, or are you a complete ignoramous??? What a moron! It’s written in plain english THERE’S NO FUNDING FOR …
Maybe it’s just me, but these “for the Complete Ignoramous” or “for Dummies” really irritate me. Just because you don’t know how to …
Adj describing person
I’m more of an “arts personâ€, so I’m almost completely ignoramous in science-related issues
If you haven’t noticed (and if you haven’t, you must be totally blind… or, completely ignoramous) my blog looks all fresh and new!
Infact, you should bowdlerize what u have written up there because they are completely ignoramous.
N? Adj? Extraneous a(rticle)?
Please bare with me – I’m a completely ignoramous. The ‘albumNumber’ variable in line 16 has already been passed to this form and does exist.
Adj describing words/thoughts/etc.
Perhaps others could verify. Click to expand… What you quoted holds true today, even though I believe it to be a completely ignoramous idea. But, it is code.
They had multiple copies of the second two and for some completely ignoramous reason, I did not buy them all.
PS: Stephanieloveswater’s comment is completely ignoramous…and it underscores the point Bush supporters live on another planet
You don’t hate them because they lie. Admit that at least. And thanks for returning the quote back in a completely ignoramous fashion as if to say “ha ha take that!
fwiw, if anybody has (I think I have) ever used the plural form ignorami not-tongue-in-cheek, they have proved themselves to be in the named category, falling for another eggcornish reanalysis. The -us ending of ignoramus is not the Latin masculine nom. sg. ending, but the 1st person pl ending -amus; the word came not from a Latin noun but from the form meaning “we are ignorantâ€.
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(Anyone who claims to be an ignoramous may be reasonably suspected of having the tongue firmly lodged in such a cheeky claim.)
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2021-04-23 23:04:20)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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