Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2025-05-10
‘Crock and bull story’ was posted on the forum last year. This version is more anatomically correct:
If the incident hadn’t been videotaped by a passerby, the police would undoubtedly have concocted a cock and ball story to explain away his injuries, ...
www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=9996
You don’t expect me to buy this cock and ball story, do you?
www.boingboing.net/2008/05/01/trader-joes-cashew-4.html
This is not some cock-and-ball story about my domestic life, although I am becoming more domesticated as years go by…
www.rue.co.uk/blog/
Think about it some more, and then make up some cock-and-ball story.
www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16576776
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I was just about to say that, just as the connection between bite and chew seems fairly obvious, the connection between chickens and cows seems more natural than that between chickens and soccer balls.
Of course, I was missing the anatomical connection. I think I failed to make that connection with the singular form of ball.
On the other hand, a “cock and balls story” would suggest a very specific genre, not connected with police or the Ig Nobel awards.
On the third hand, have you checked out the photo of the Trade Joe’s Cashew at Ken’s second URI? Note, too, that the title of the story at the third URI is “Wet dreams”. Those two may have been punning on the pornographic. The first, however, seem more innocently eggcornish.
On that note, I find 105 uGhits for “cock and ball story”, and a scan of the Google snippets suggests that at least 46 of them are stories about penises. Still, that’s possibly as many as 59 other reshapings.
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