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Chris -- 2018-04-11
Last year my wife began to get itchy swellings on her feet. The physician’s diagnosis was chilblains, caused, he said, by warming them too fast with a floor heater when they were cold.
Chilblains derives from “chill” and “blains.” “Blain/blane” is an Old English word for a red, often ulcerated swelling. Chilblains are therefore swellings caused by exposure to cold.
Some people call these “chillbanes/chilbanes” (See examples below). Not a bad revision. “Bane” is another word with an Old English pedigree, and one of its meanings is “poison.” These days we use “bane” in idioms (“the bane of my life”) and in plant names (dogbane, henbane, etc.). “Bane” is also a choice word for fantasy writers (e.g., “Durin’s Bane” in LOTR). The painful swellings caused by chills could indeed be thought of as “banes.”
There are also scores of ghits for “childblains.” This may be a simple malaprop. But children are often plagued with chilblains, so it could be another eggcorn of “chilbains.”
Post on a medical symptoms site: “I couldnt wear shoes for two weeks..doctor said I had chillbanes and gave me medication” (http://forums.wrongdiagnosis.com/archiv … -3118.html)
Equestrian forum: “I also get chillbanes, and that is worse than the cracked fingers.” (http://www.equestrianlog.com/horse/seve … 78-30.html)
Fiction site: “He paused to look at his hands, remembering the blue color, the chillbanes. The frostbite.” (http://lostcitytales.wordpress.com/2007 … -to-black/)
Herbal medicine web page: “Rub it on sore mucles, joints, bruises, and or chilbanes. ” (http://www.manzanitamagic.com/skincare.html)
Last edited by kem (2008-07-16 01:07:28)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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Wow. I’ll be honest, this is a word I read as a kid in books that were mostly set among poor families (maybe some Dickens novels? Or maybe set in the American South) and just thought it was a made-up word for chills! I never knew it was an actual medical condition.
You learn something new every day. :-) (And some parts of the stories would probably make more sense to me now. LOL.)
Feeling quite combobulated.
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Chilblains may affect about one out of ten people at some time in their lives. One out of ten who live in climates with freezing winter temperatures, that is-presumably the incidence is lower in equatorial countries.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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