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
About 40 hits. This may be an eggcorn: flurries can sometimes seem fairly furious – and I like the fact that “snow fury” sounds like some kind of pagan divinity. But then again, I’m always a bit suspicious of “eggcorns” that depend on the omission of one or more letters, esp. when the number of hits is fairly low. This could just be a product of bad typing; I’m not sure. Examples:
We had some snow furies today which makes Christmas day complete.
http://www.bowlingfans.com/cgi-bin/ulti … 000190;p=0
She was very happy and pleased as it was a nice 32f with snow furies flying around!
http://forums.lifeway.com/groupee/forum … 60881/p/48
Despite the cold water high 20’s-low 30’s and snow furies the streets were warm enough from last weeks spring weather that none of the snow that occasionally fell was sticking but was instead just keeping the street wet and making puddles and little streams.
http://www.dachsie.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=1420
man, I remember coming up this way last tour – the beginning of april and we just dodged a storm, snow furies coming all on us.
http://www.hootpage.com/hoot_rhcpsuptour2003diary2.html
Offline
The problem with it being a typo is that it requires two missing letters—an L and an R. If it were just a missed L, you’d have ‘snow furries’.
Offline
That’s true. But there’s a further complication: people often reduce double consonants to a single letter in English. “Snow fluries” gets over 300 hits by itself. So it wouldn’t take all that much for a poor or hurrying typist to omit one more letter. And I’ve been thinking about “spitting headache” and “spiting headache” for months now without ever posting them. They both get 100’s of hits, but I’m sure some of both of them are misspellings. I just can’t figure out how to guesstimate how many might be eggcornish.
Offline
A twitter earlier this month proposed a new context for the “flurry->fury†eggcorn discussed in this post. A fellow calling himself “Ed Murphy†called attention to the phrase “fury of activity.â€
But is “fury of activity†really an eggcorn? Unlike Pat’s “snow furies,†the case for “fury of activity†is not clear. The phrase would be a reasonable metaphor in its own right had “flurry of activity†not existed. Google Books shows both phrases were current in the middle of the nineteenth century. The OED indicates that both “fury†and “flurry†were in use during the seventeenth century in phrases that conveyed excitement and haste.
I see examples on the web of several other “fury of†phrases that may have a better claim to be eggcorning “flurry of.†“Fury of interest,†“fury of calls,†“fury of feathers,†and “fury of rumors,†for example.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
Offline
A fury of eggcorns! This is an old post I hadn’t seen before; “snow furies” is priceless.
The following isn’t an eggcorn, but an interesting malaprop: snow slurries. I can imagine a slurry of snow and water on the ground, but falling from the sky? Only in an avalaunch. A slurry is a suspension of particles in water.
From Australia
There are cold winds and snow slurries still to come before spring is here, but it seems that a golden glow is close behind the gloom and cold.
From the UK
On Friday there were snow slurries in the North of Shenyang.
From the UK
Hearts of Oak angling club fished their first match of the summer season at Westlands on the new island pond on a day which turned out to be cold and windy with a few snow slurries thrown in for good measure.
Severe weather warning: Snow slurpees
Offline