Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
Need a little help on this one. Isle is a homonym of aisle and also spelled the same, sans one “a”. Still, my gut tells me a lot of the hits(34,200) are coming from people substituting the imagery of “isle” when they hear the word “aisle”. Let’s face it: maybe everybody doesn’t understand the meaning of “aisle” in the political sense (party affiliation visually denoted by which side of the central aisle one sits in congress). “Isle” makes a very good substitution while retaining the sense of being on “opposite sides”. Of course, “aisle” doesn’t necessarily mean one would be on opposite sides of an issue, but it is often referred to when that is just the case, thus making “isle” ripe as an eggcorn. Shoot, it might even be a more effective imagery than the original!
Examples:
2006 election analysis 34 And most were disgusted at hearing allegations about corrupt politicians on both sides of the isle springing from the indictment …
www.electionanalysis.com/ – 19k
I don’t know all the history of the situation but there sure was a lot of support on both sides of the isle to go get Saddam out of there. ...
www.oliverwillis.com/2007/06/mitt_romney_is_.html – 36k
NAIS is getting support and opposition from both sides of the isle. ... There are bad guys and good guys on both sides of the isle. ...
209.157.64.200/focus/f-bloggers/1656002/posts – 18k
Any thoughts?
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It sure conjures up the notion that one is stranded on a deserted island with an opponent, and it’s been necessary to divide the island into halves to get along. (You stay on your side of the island, and I’ll stay on mine). From there, compromise is reached only when “both sides of the isle” come together for that purpose.
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Matt, I posted something on ‘rolling in the aisles/isles’ some time ago but your imagery is very different and ”’aisle’ in the political sense” means absolutely nothing on this side of the water. If anything, aisle is very firmly nailed to the idea of marriage in a church, where the two families occupy their respective positions on either side of the aisle and, it must be acknowledged, are on opposite sides in more ways than one.
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Thanks, Peter. Was there any kind of imagery for your submission? I can’t come up with anything that would tie laughing to islands, except that it makes me laugh trying.
Is the phrase “both/other side of the aisle” used to convey agreement/opposition?
Jorkel, thanks for the imagery input. I’m going to run it past my wife: she isn’t buying my suggestions so far. But, what else could explain “isle”? In her mind, and island is too small to be on the opposite side of. I’m trying to convince her that in the minds of others, maybe that island is a little bigger. Maybe this dilemma is for another website. Marriage communications or something.
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Matt, as is often the case when I have occasion to revisit an earlier post, I wonder why on earth I bothered. For what it’s worth, here it is:
rolling in the aisles’ 125,000 Googlehits
‘rolling in the Isles’ 22,000 Googlehits
Extremely humourous live entertainment could, perhaps, render an audience helpless with laughter and this notion gives rise to the idiomatic expression ‘rolling in the aisles’. It could well be that ‘isles’ is simply a misspelling of ‘aisles’, though 22,000 misspellings does seem rather high, or perhaps there may be an assumption that people living on faraway islands are more difficult to amuse than sophisticated city-dwellers and to have them ‘rolling in the Isles’ is a noteworthy feat.
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You know, I never would have thought of it from that angle. Perhaps some of the 22,000 actually do!
The mind is a terrible thing….
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Both sides of the isle could be taken literally in countries such as Britain or even smaller islands, especially those which are politically divided like Cyprus. For some reason “isle” always sounds to me somewhat smaller than an island – Australia may be an island but would never be an isle in my mind. Strange.
As for aisle, this is itself misused. People talk of walking up the aisle, or in the sense of this thread being on both sides of the aisle. The aisles of a building such as a church or theatre are in fact the walkways at the sides, not the one in the centre (I seem to recall the etymology is from wings?).
I do remember seeing a flyer for an improvised comedy show which was to be performed up close and personal “in the round”. It said “we’ll be roling (sic) in the aisles” (I am certain the pun was deliberate on their part as the “we” would not make sense otherwise)
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Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a day; set a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life – Terry Pratchett
http://blog.meteorit.co.uk
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