Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
The eggcorn tem that I heard on the
Boston radio is Caught in the Crosshairs.
I think that the correct term is Caught in the Crossfire.
If you are Caught in the Crossfire, you are in the middle
between two people shooting at each other, where you are
a (witting or unwitting) target.
You can be “In the Crosshairs”. But if you are
“Caught in the Crosshairs”, all you have to do is move
in either direction, and you are no longer in the crosshairs.
So, “In the Crosshairs” is correct from the shooter’s perspective.
But “Caught in the Crosshairs” implies a perspective from the target’s
viewpoint. And I don’t think that the target would have any knowledge
of whether or not the crosshairs are pointing at him/her.
This is my first eggcorn. Hope that the explanation is clear, and that
I am using the eggcorn concept correctlly.
Referred here from the Boston Globle WORD column, – Jan Freeman.
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Nice presentation. The linguists might call your find an idiom blend rather than an eggcorn, but I’m not entirely sure.
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I’ve heard both expressions all my life, and I’ve always assumed that they referred to two different situations. My understanding of “caught in the crossfire” is the same as tfoley’s. But I’ve always thought that “caught in the crosshairs” referred to a situation in which you have the feeling that you are about to start “taking fire,” that someone “has a bead” on you. And I don’t see why the prey can’t imagine what the predator is looking at through his long-range scope. But perhaps I’m merely justifying my own idiosyncratic usage.
And weirdly enough, I couldn’t find “crosshairs” in the OED. Where’s Ben Zimmer when you need him?
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http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/crosshair
Yeah, caught in the crossfire/crosshairs are two separate phrases. A
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Thanks for the reference, Dadge. My problem wasn’t finding dictionary definitions in general, but specifically the entry in the OED—I wanted to see what dates they had for the earliest use of “crosshair.” I eventually found a reference under the “cross-” entry, but there they just refer you to the word “spider-line,” the 19th C term for “crosshair.” Somewhat surprisingly, the OED claims that filaments from spider webs were first used for the crosshairs in optical instruments, hence the “spider-line” term.
Of course, since the OED doesn’t give a separate entry for “crosshair,” there are no dates or mentions of the use of the term in phrases. My trusty old Merriam Webster hardback says 1884 for first citation.
Dadge, did your post get cut off? It looks like you meant to say more.
Last edited by patschwieterman (2007-05-25 12:10:24)
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Pat, the OED is correct about spiderlines. The first person to apply them to telescopic sights was William Gascoigne, “an amateur astronomer of Middleton, near Leeds. . . ” about 1640. The use of a a silk threat from a spiderweb for this purpose was apparently revealed to him by God: “This is that admirable secret which, as all other things, appeared when it pleased the All Disposer, at whose directions a spider’s line drawn in an open case could first give me by its perfect apparition. . . the unexpected knowledge.” (undated letter). Gascoigne went on to invent the eyepiece micrometer, but died at the Battle of Marston Moor in the English Civil War. His priority in the discovery or invention of cross-hairs was only established later from his correspondence.
See Henry c. King, The History of the Telescope (1955), reprinted by Dover. King quoted a Gascoigne letter of January 25, 1641, which doesn’t square with the date of his death. The letter quoted is dated January 25, “Cross-hairs” doesn’t appear in the index, but I have a feeling that if I reread the whole thing I could find an example before 1884.
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David, I’m sometimes a bit alarmed at the kinds of information you seem to have available at your mental fingertips. But I know you’re an amateur astronomer, so I guess that makes me feel marginally less inadequate.
Spider filaments seem awfully fragile. Did this work because the filaments were enclosed in a part of the instruments that’s away from moving parts?
Too bad the All Disposer didn’t see fit to reveal a cure for cancer—or for global warming—while s/he was at it.
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From one perspective, spider filaments are awfully fragile. I’d have thought that the point is that they were less fragile than pretty much anything else that was that thin and available in the C17th. Their tensile strength is about the same as high-grade steel, or so I am led to believe. So presumably their virtue came from being incredibly thin, and tough enough to still be used.
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