Eggcorn Forum

As I write this, the melancholy tune of the eighteenth century French song “Plaisir d’Amour” runs through my head. “The pleasure of love is but a moment. The pain (chagrin) of unrequited love lasts a lifetime.” (http://ingeb.org/songs/plaisird.html)

“Chagrin” is both an English and a French word. We borrowed the term, in fact, from French. Twice. The French word “chagrin” originally referred to a rough animal skin that was used for polishing. It developed a metaphorical meaning that indicated a state of vexation, irritation. We eventually accepted both meanings of the word from French, but to keep the two meanings straight we used the French spelling for the metaphorical meaning and nipped the other as “shagreen,” an English word for a buffing cloth.

Both borrowings retain most of the sound characteristics of the French “chagrin” (the initial “sh”, the accent on the last syllable). The metaphorical borrowing, because it keeps the French orthography as well as the French sound, offers a challenge to English writers. It is easily misspelled. “Shagrin” and “shigren” are popular.

One misspelling of “chagrin” may be an eggcorn. A shy grin might be an appropriate response to the embarrassment of chagin. In the web examples below the writers have substituted “shygrin/shy grin” for “chagrin” in the idiom “to my/the/his/her chagrin:”

Words put into the mouth of a dog on a pet page: “I’d run and jump to get that ball. It was my favorite toy of all untill I lost that old danged ball. And to my shygrin it was never to be seen again.” (http://pets.webshots.com/photo/10310297 … gLxWJQlslO)

Response to a myspace survey: “Usually to the shygrin of everyone I grace with my presence.” (http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuse … D=66159357)

Mail message: “I just implemented the allow-query command in my named.conf on all of these servers and much to my shygrin i dont think its actually limiting anything? ” (http://markmail.org/message/jm5hklo7vj4 … te:results)

Blog entry: “I would love to laugh, but much to my shy grin, i remember when men used to be men, and wonder if men will ever be men again… ” (http://tinyurl.com/48mc9e)

Last edited by kem (2008-10-12 22:47:03)