Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
Google counts on Oct 16, 2006
144,000 “own up to it”
145 “owe up to it”
Analysis by Joe Krozel
“Owning up” to something, means taking responsibility. It’s easy to see how “owe” might be substituted for “own” since the former implies a debt, a responsibility of sorts.
Examples:
Discover Vancouver Forum – no signature on speeding ticket.Just be a man or woman and pay the friggin ticket Don’t use/waste the taxpayers money for your little cause . idiots Your guilty… now owe up to it and pay …
www.discovervancouver.com/forum/topic.a … _ID=107298 – 40k – Cached – Similar pages
Environmentalists Against WarWhen a country makes a mistake, it must owe up to it and try to fix it. We must begin a phased withdraw immediately and focus upon building permanent …
www.envirosagainstwar.org/know/read.php?itemid=3084 – 18k – Cached – Similar pages
Fabulous Adventures In Coding : Arrrrr! Cap’n Eric be learnin …Seriously, though—as much of a mistake that was, it’s good to see that you’re willing to owe up to it. It’s probably not proof against making an even …
blogs.msdn.com/ericlippert/archive/2003/09/19/53054.aspx – 38k – Cached – Similar pages
Looking for bloggers on blogging in the enterprise – Computerworld …If your company made a mistake, owe up to it—don’t ignore it. READABLE! We’ve been hearing readability as a usability issue for years and it continues to …
www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/2517 – 83k – Cached – Similar pages
:: schadenfreude.net ::you have a responsibility, and just owe up to it. Say you’re sorry, say it won’t happen again, and just move on. And everyone else, learn something. ...
www.schadenfreude.net/stephen/2005/06/p … riday.html – 20k – Cached – Similar pages
Yahoo! Answers – Are you honest about you children?If a person makes a mistake they should owe up to it and I expect my children to pay for theirs just like anyone else. 3 weeks ago …
answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060828192011AAGNSjD – 62k – Cached – Similar pages
The Portland Freelancer: March 2006I said I’ve been taking a lot of shots at them on my blog and I wanted to owe up to it. They didn’t seem awful or anything, but this project is a joke. ...
portlandfreelancer.blogspot.com/2006_03_01_portlandfreelancer_archive.html – 368k – Cached – Similar pages
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Just ran across this one myself:
Let the kids owe up and have responsibility.
brought change to America by electing the first African American as president, and finally forcing those in power right now to owe up to their mistakes.
Owe up to what you say or don’t say it.
Lots of other examples to be found from searching “owe up to theirâ€, “owe up to whatâ€, and so forth.
.
Agree with Joe’s analysis: nearly always there is some sort of obligation associated with what one must own up to, so “owe†fits very well.
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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The Eggcorn Database has it in the other direction, owe >> own . Here’s the example I noticed recently:
by your logic I should write “everyone seeing this owns me $1000” in my video descriptions
YouTube comment
This one takes me back to my early childhood, when at least some of my young peers (and myself?) commonly used “own” for “owe”.
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