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Chris -- 2018-04-11
My business partner (twice in one client meeting!) said “the gig is up.” Of course, she meant “the jig is up.” (She wasn’t saying it in the second person, so it’s not like readers of this post are second-hand witnesses to a messy confrontation. I’m sure you’re relieved!). Check the link below for elucidation.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/indepth/words/gigjig.html
My fear here is that if I go on long enough, I’ll drop an eggcorn of my own. I don’t think I could handle the collective contumely sure to ensue.
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“Collective contumely”!! Oooh, you’re giving me da chicken skin, Soulturtle…
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The Eggcorns Forum doesn’t usually go in for collective contumely—we celebrate the erroneous….
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“The gig is up” gets 31.6k raw hits on Google. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to tell how many of those writers would pronounce it “jig” and how many would say “gig” with a hard “g.” In any case, I like it. I think the hard “g” pronunciation makes a pretty good eggcorn: one’s gig – the term of one’s employment or engagement – is over. And when the jig is up, the gig is often up, too.
There’s a long (perhaps too long) discussion of “The gig is up” in a usage column over at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) website: http://www.cbc.ca/news/indepth/words/gigjig.html
Among other things, the column has some worthwhile comments about the problems faced by journalists who are transcribing interviews that include eggcorns. (The writer doesn’t actually use the term “eggcorn,” but he’s talking about them at at least a couple of points.)
But what really struck me in the CBC column was this sentence:
Old words like “sweetard” (as in drunkard) have evolved to “sweetheart,” and some dictionaries now serve up “sherbert” along with the original dessert: “sherbet.”
Wait! “Sweetheart” evolved from “sweetard”? Really? “Sweetheart” (in various spellings) is all over Middle English texts, but I’ve never run into “sweetard” that I can recall.The OED has never heard of this word – it lists “sweet + heart” as the origin of “sweetheart.” I couldn’t find “sweetard” or “swetard” in the Middle English Dictionary, either.
So of course I went googling for “sweetard.” The Wikipedia article on “Folk etymology” does include “sweetheart” in a list of words produced through folk etymology. Here’s the short entry:
sweetheart from sweetard (the same suffix as in dullard and dotard)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_etymology
Over all, that Wikipedia article is really informative and full of intriguing details. People who hang out at the Eggcorns Forum would probably find lots of it interesting. But I suspect that there’s an irony here as far as “sweetheart” goes – from what I can tell so far, the word “sweetard” is likely the product of an erroneous folk etymology itself. The gig is up, Wkipedia!
Last edited by patschwieterman (2007-06-29 15:20:08)
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If sweetard -.> sweetheart were a real etymology, one might expect parallel cases like dullard->dullhheart and drunkard-drunkheart.
The first of these doesn’t turn up anything interesting, and the only individual who gets called ‘drunkheart’ is Mel Gibson, the bibulous director of ‘Braveheart.’Offline
Gibson! That bastheart….
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Okay, if the Web is full of joking spellings of “bastheart,” “dullheart,” and “drunkheart” by next summer, you’ll all know to blame Ken Lakritz. (For the historical record, there are as of today 78 unique hits for “Drunkheart” and 7 for “Bastheart.” Most of them are noms de Web.) And someone was thinking along the same lines as Javalon last summer; here’s a post on Gibson’s alcoholism from August, 2006 entitled “Drunkheart”: http://theapologist.blogspot.com/2006/0 … heart.html
Ken’s point is a good one, and it inspired me to go look at the OED entry on the -ard suffix. Here’s the heart of the article:
It appeared in [Middle English]. in words from [Old French], as bastard, coward, mallard, wizard, also in names of things, as placard, standard (flag); and became at length a living formative of English derivatives, as in buzzard, drunkard, laggard, sluggard, with sense of ‘one who does to excess, or who does what is discreditable.’
So this is yet more counter-evidence for the “sweetard” theory. We moderns may not be alive to the pejorative implications of ”-ard,” but 13th century speakers of English probably would have been. “Sweetard” wouldn’t have been a nice thing to call your sweetheart. (Interesting that our “retard” kinda fits the pattern despite its different origin.)
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On the other hand, everyone knows “coward” derives from “cowheart,” the opposite of “lionheart,” or as one is wont to say, “Leonard.”
And didn’t Mel Gibson’s career peak with “Bravard?”
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See there? Ken already has much to answer for….
Poking around the “Discussion” section of the Wikipedia “Folk Etymology” article, I found that one Wikipedian (apparently a Flann O’Brien fan using the handle of Sirmylesnagopaleentheda) posted an objection to “sweetard” back on November 9, 2006:
I cannot find any references that make the claim that “sweetheart” is derived from “sweetard”, nor can I find any references to “sweetard” being an actual word. All the references that I have found state that “sweetheart” is simply a combination of “sweet” and “heart”. In fact, dictionary.com states that is is from ME swete herte.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Folk_ … etheart.3F
No one responded to him, and the dubious “sweetard” etymology is still there.
If they must have a false etymology on the page, I think Soulturtle’s wonderful “cowheart” would be a much better choice.
Speaking of Wikipedia, I ran into one of those odd “only on Wikipedia!” conundrums while looking at the article on Jesse Sheidlower, the Editor-at-large of the OED. On the “Discussion” page for that article, one of the editors bemoans the fact that s/he can’t find confirmation for some basic bio info for Sheidlower. At that point, JS appears and provides the needed info. With some embarrassment, the editor explains that Wikipedia policy requires a citation of a published primary source and, um, Sheidlower himself isn’t a verifiable source. The policy is justifiable, but the results are both frustrating and kinda funny. The page is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Jesse_Sheidlower
Last edited by patschwieterman (2007-07-01 21:36:46)
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