Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
There’s a cooking show on PBS called “Jose Made in Spain.” The host/cook, Jose Andres, has such a cartoonish Spanish accent that I suspected a put-on, but then it’s a very cartoonish show full of beamingly picturesque Spaniards (or Catalans: Today Jose was in Catalunya without ever mentioning that Catalans are not Spaniards and their language is not Spanish. The show ended with folkloresque musicians on a beach singing a “traditional” habanera in Castilian, and sounding curiously Mexican.)
Anyway, Jose never says “varieties” but “vayarities,” of wine, shrimp, grapes, etc. It took me a moment to understand that this was a metasthesis, and that the “r” was being switched with the “y” in the diphthong of the second syllable. Not an eggcorn, but curiously irresistible. I may take it up.
David
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This might be partially influenced by the common word “vaya” in Spanish—most prominently recognizable in the expression “Vaya con Dios” which translates as “Go with God” ...if my high school Spanish doesn’t fail me. (“Vaya” is the imperative of the verb Ir, to go). But that’s just one theory. My other theory is that the word variety is being reshaped to fit the more common ending ’-arity.”
Whatever the truth be, it certainly is a nice little reshaping to ponder.
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