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Chris -- 2018-04-11
I noticed this possible eggcorn in the writings of a dear friend of mine. She—if I recall correctly—described someone as “blatantly gay” (why yes, we are indeed talking anime slash). It makes sense, but it didn’t sit right with me. I later noticed other cases where she’d used “blatant” where I (as a non-native speaker) would have had “patent”.
Now she’s a welleducated person with good command of language, so I don’t think it’s necessarily just a malaprop. Presumably this use of “patent” is just unfamiliar to her (intellectual property and whatnot being the primary use for the word now). And “blatant” does make sense, even if a somewhat different one (to me, at least).
According to my dictionary American English doesn’t use a diphthong in “patent” so I don’t know if this might be a more Rightpondian ‘mistake’.
The stockphrase for “patently” is (to me) “patently ridiculous”, which gets some 140 kghits (http://www.google.com/search?q=%22paten … iculous%22). “Blatantly ridiculous” gets around 10 kghits:
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22paten … iculous%22
“As a result, incidents that could be forgiven if handled with less earnestness appear blatantly ridiculous:”
“It’s blatantly ridiculous. If there had been people in the AWB, ... That is blatantly ridiculous, unless you are doing it for your specific purpose of …”
“It’s really clear that Sara Silverman is being blatantly ridiculous and toungue in cheek” (I guess “blatant” might be deliberate in this case.)
“It’s blatantly ridiculous and a fraud against the people who bought the shares”
“Blatantly ridiculous Reports that “the Internet is dying” have been circulating”
Searching for “bla-/patently stupid” instead gives about 30 kghits of each
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22patently+stupid%22 (30 kghits)
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22blatantly+stupid%22 (27 kghits)
Ironically, the usage that first triggered my wonder, “blatantly gay”, is the predominant one:
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22patently+gay%22 (200 ghits)
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22blatantly+gay%22 (800 ghits)
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“Blatant” for “patent” was also brought up in the discussion pages for the Eggcorn article on Wikipedia a couple of weeks ago. That seemed odd to me at the time, but here it is again, and Sili’s comment about the similarity in pronunciation between the two words in British English makes the eggcornicity of “blatant” seem more comprehensible to this Yank.
I think that if this use of “blatant” started as an eggcorn, it isn’t one now. Here’s the relevant citation from the OED for “patent”:
II. 4. a. Of a fact, quality, phenomenon, etc.: clear, evident, obvious.
And here’s the relevant sense of “blatant” – which is also the sense for which the OED provides the largest and most recent set of examples:
1. c. In recent usage: obtrusive to the eye (rather than to the ear as in orig. senses); glaringly or defiantly conspicuous; palpably prominent or obvious.
Both words can mean “obvious,” “evident,” etc. “Blatant” adds an edge of prominence, conspicuousness, perhaps even ostentatiousness to that basic idea. So saying, for instance, that someone is “blatantly gay” may or may not be rude, but it’s not a lexical error. This use of “blatant” is fairly recent; the OED’s earliest citation is from 1889. That fact leaves open the possibility that the meaning of “patent” influenced the meaning of “blatant,” which of course has a similar phonetic structure. It’s at least possible, then, that this now-standard sense of “blatant” had eggcornish origins.
Incidentally, that first citation of this sense of “blatant” is from the Gilbert and Sullivan opera Gondoliers, and the sentence in question rhymes – guess what? – “patent” with “blatant.” There may also be a play on the legal phrase “letters patent” here:
1889 W. S. GILBERT Gondoliers II, I write letters blatant On medicines patent.
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Thank you. That was quick—and enlightening.
My impression was indeed that “blatant” had the ‘in your face’ edge to it, and that some uses with that are indeed deliberate. But in many cases it’s not my impression that that’s what people want to convey. They just mean obvious, but not ostentatiously so. It may well be lexical drift. I have to admit that my English is terribly bookish—some friends of mine looked as me as if I were crazy when I talked about “social intercourse” at some point.
I need to hear more G&S, too, I think.
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