Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
You are not logged in.
Registrations are currently closed because of a technical problem. Please send email to
The forum administrator reserves the right to request users to plausibly demonstrate that they are real people with an interest in the topic of eggcorns. Otherwise they may be removed with no further justification. Likewise, accounts that have not been used for posting may be removed.
Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
I was looking at used cars on eBay today when I encountered one with a cracked “wind mirror”. This seems to be a fairly frequent misunderstanding or perhaps just a typo as ‘g’ and ‘d’ are quite close on the keyboard. I realise we’ve had a lot of wings and winds recently but the imagery here, assuming it is deliberate, is quite different; I’m guessing that, unlike the car’s internal mirror, the mirrors on the car wings are subjected to much buffeting from the wind…
29 Mar 2007 … Replacing broken wind-mirror., On a Laguna II (02 reg). Options V … Yeah, all new Lagunas have a special wind-mirror. ...
www.rllmukforum.com/index.php?showtopic=155546 – 72k – Cached
... let you know if I have it or not Head lights £10 for the pair Front Indicators £5 N/s wind mirror £10 O/s wind mirror £10 Front grill inc lights £10 . ...
boardreader.com/tp/Huddersfield+West.html – 112k – Cached
The wind mirror had obviously come off worse for wear in some parking manoeuvre and wouldn’t clip back into position. Consequently the driver had a very …
www.cix.co.uk/~phils/chronicle/funcarmechanics.htm – 12k – Cached
She looked in the wind mirror, watching as the pair of men walked cautiously towards the car. Unfastening her seatbelt she turned to Bruce and shook him. ...
www.geocities.com/peacefulempress/fiction/aogn.html – 235k – Cached
(Having selected a few examples I can’t help noticing that most are from UK sites – I may have uncovered another boot/trunk hood/ bonnet source of confusion.)
Offline
Your second example has “wind mirror” twice; seems an unlikely double-typo. And I buy the image of wind buffeting the mirrors.
“Let’s not get bogged down in semantics.”—Homer Simpson to Gary Coleman
Offline
I may have uncovered another boot/trunk hood/ bonnet source of confusion.
I guess you have. My first response was, “What’s a wing mirror?” I think I’ve usually heard them called “side mirrors.” But then again, I’m a non-driver. Maybe the other Yanks on the forum are familiar with “wing mirror.”
Offline
In the 1950s the external mirrors on cars were mounted on the wings, those curvy bits on either side of the bonnet/hood. Over the years the mirrors slowly migrated towards the driver until they ended up perched on the door, near where the sidelight used to be. They are now, I recollect a little too late, known as ‘door mirrors’, with ten times more googlehits than their winged ancestors. The sidelight, incidentally, was a small hinged window which was very popular with car thieves, guaranteeing its extinction. Did it have a different name in the States I wonder?
Offline
Over here the technical name for a “sidelight” is, as I recall, “little triangle window.”
We also called them “vent windows.”
Last edited by kem (2008-04-09 15:28:02)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
Offline