Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
I’m not sure about this one. Many English dialects pronounce a ‘th’ sound as an ‘ff’ sound, which is probably the root of this misinterpretation, but the question is whether ‘roofless’ can create a feasible alternative image for ‘ruthless’. It may be that some eggcorners consider that ruthlessness and morally dubious behaviour, including criminality may be an attribute, or consequence, of homelessness? Anyway, here are a few examples – I’ve had to use “rooflessly” rather than “roofless” to tease out relevant usage:
Oh yeah, all right (many times) How much did you pay for the chock of his guitar The one he rooflessly smashed at the end of the show and how much will he …
www.guitaretab.com/c/cake/2903.html – 12k – Cached
Secondly, the inherent Russian roulette involved in driving an adversary into desperation while rooflessly building up military capacity is that you can …
www.hlrecord.org/news/2003/02/13/Opinio … 8302.shtml – 40k – Cached -
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Peter, your creativity abounds!
Secondly, the inherent Russian roulette involved in driving an adversary into desperation while rooflessly building up military capacity is that you can …
www.hlrecord.org/news/2003/02/13/Opinio … 8302.shtml – 40k – Cached –
The example you give—reproduced above—could be an eggcorn. The utterer of that phrase might have heard someone use the construction “ruthlessly building up…,” and misunderstood it to be “rooflessly building up…” In this latter usage, a roofless buildup would be one without any bounds. So, the new imagery makes sense as a legitimate substitute for the original.
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