Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
Perhaps the idea is that coming from the boondocks hinders your life prospects. I don’t know enough German to say whether or not ‘hinter’ and ‘hinder’ are variants of the same word, in which case this would be less interesting. At the least, it’s a common variant spelling:
I have returned from the hinder lands with much to tell. Salutations.
nomoremrgoodbar.blogspot.com/2008/05/i-have-returned-from-hinder-lands-with.html
...local residents must take there kids to hinder lands without benefit of bus pickups …
www.tomatopages.com/folsomforum/lofiver … 15875.html
...desert and hillside of hinderlands. ... ecological conditions from the hinderlands.
www.springerlink.com/index/Y58042N0643J715U.pdf
The electorial college concept gives more weight and importance to the hinder lands while dampening the effects of the major cities and states.
www.sudhian.com/index.php?/forums/viewpost/447688/
Thus, typical disasters in the western coastal areas are the breaching of crown walls and flooding in the hinder lands.
linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S002980180100049X
World of Warcraft – English (NA) Forums -> Did I do this quest or …Oct 22, 2008 … For the last two hours I have been in the Hinderlands farming for the … I was looking for the beacon in the Hinderlands for the oox since …
forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html;jsessionid=
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klakritz wrote:
Perhaps the idea is that coming from the boondocks hinders your life prospects.
Or that trudging through the hinderlands is hindered by deep snow or mud, or by tree branches clutching at you as you try to walk through the wilderness.
I don’t know enough German to say whether or not ‘hinter’ and ‘hinder’ are variants of the same word, in which case this would be less interesting.
Yes, and in fact it probably doesn’t qualify as an eggcorn precisely because “hinter” and “hinder” are from the same root, an old German word meaning “behind” (which itself is presumably from the same root).
Dixon
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I’m still of the opinion that etymology is at best a secondary sort of consideration for assessing eggcornhood. Synchronic relatedness, i.e. relatedness or identification in speakers’ minds, is the important thing. If speakers nowadays don’t recognize hinder and hinter as the same word/morpheme, I don’t much care if they were the same centuries ago.
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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DavidTuggy wrote:
I’m still of the opinion that etymology is at best a secondary sort of consideration for assessing eggcornhood. Synchronic relatedness, i.e. relatedness or identification in speakers’ minds, is the important thing. If speakers nowadays don’t recognize hinder and hinter as the same word/morpheme, I don’t much care if they were the same centuries ago.
That makes considerable sense. Is there some “authoritative” dictum on that issue, or is it an ambiguity or dispute re: defining features of eggcorns?
Dixon
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DavidTuggy wrote:
I’m still of the opinion that etymology is at best a secondary sort of consideration for assessing eggcornhood. Synchronic relatedness, i.e. relatedness or identification in speakers’ minds, is the important thing.
I agree – what matters is speakers’ understanding of these forms, and whether a newly reshaped form makes sense on the basis of word meanings as understood by the reshaper.
(Even so, I am willing to bet that a search of my own oeuvre on this forum will find me arguing from etymology. I suspect that I have argued, in much stronger terms than Dixon hints at above, that common etymology qualifies some form from eggcornhood.)
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nilep wrote:
I suspect that I have argued, in much stronger terms than Dixon hints at above, that common etymology qualifies some form from eggcornhood.)
nilep, did you mean to say “disqualifies” rather than “qualifies”?
Confused Dixon
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Dixon Wragg wrote:
nilep, did you mean to say “disqualifies” rather than “qualifies”?
Yes.
Confusing Chad
Last edited by nilep (2008-11-25 06:50:10)
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It’s easy to get confused. The identity or diversity of (a) meaning(s) is anything but a simple issue. The connections that historically united certain usages into one morpheme are likely to persist through centuries, and what is presented overtly as an argument from etymology will often be justifiable synchronically on the basis of surviving connections.
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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