Eggcorn Forum

Another eggcorn sent in by Jan Freeman’s readers: “twangy” for “tangy” (See http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/ … f_the_new/ for the report, http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/forum/view … hp?id=3482 for my background on Freeman’s eggcorn invitation.

Freeman observes that “[t]ang (a sharp flavor, originally) and twang (the sound of a bowstring) have been swapping places since at least 1611, when a quote in the Oxford English Dictionary mentions a ‘twang…in the mouth.’”

See also Ben Zimmer’s comments on the Freeman tang/twang report at http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/language … 04492.html .

But are tang and twang really roundtrip eggcorns, or do we simply have two ways of saying the same word, with artificial differentiations between the two ways being made in certain times and at certain places? One argument against one of these words being an eggcorn of the other is that both words may be onomatopoetic in origin. The OED posits such an etymology for the word “twang,” and some applications of the word “tang,” especially its use for the sound of a bell, are probably onomatopoetic as well. If the interchangeable versions of tang and twang are both onomatopoetic, then claiming that one is “original” and the other dependent on it is arguing about whether roosters say cock-a-doodle-doo, kikiriki, cocorico or ko-ke kokkoh. When it comes to onomatopoeia, we hear what we hear.

The confusion between these two words leads to a lexigraphic problem in a Shakespeare text. In the second act of The Tempest the drunken Stephano sings a ribald sea shanty:

The master, the swabber, the boatswain and I,
The gunner and his mate
Loved Mall, Meg and Marian and Margery,
But none of us cared for Kate;
For she had a tongue with a tang,
Would cry to a sailor, Go hang!
She loved not the savour of tar nor of pitch,
Yet a tailor might scratch her where’er she did itch:
Then to sea, boys, and let her go hang!

What does the line “a tongue with a tang” mean? The OED cites this passage from The Tempest under two different definitions of “tang.” In its oldest use, “tang” described the pointy part of a snake or an insect that produced the sting or bite. It could also refer to the blade of a knife or the barb of a fishhook. By extension the word came to mean an odor or taste that had a “bite.” Perhaps Shakespeare is appealing to this history of “tang” in order to say that Kate was sharp-tongued, that she had a barbed tongue.

Alternately, Shakespeare may have been invoking the use of “tang” that refers the sound of a bell or string, a meaning of the word that was current in the seventeenth century. Shakespeare’s one other use of “tang,” found in the forged letter that Malvolio reads in Twelfth Night, employs it as verb. The sense of the verb seems to be “to resound, sound forth,” so it is tempting to understand the noun form in The Tempest in a similar way. If we do understand it in this way, then Shakespeare would be saying that Kate had a loud, penetrating voice, a twang. In support of this interpretation, note that the next line has her exclaiming “Go hang!” to the rejected tars, a phrase that has a bell-like sonority.

It is possible, of course, that Shakespeare had both meanings in mind when he wrote these lyrics. In any case, the debate over the meaning of “tang” in The Tempest highlights the easy morals of port prostitutes and the lax lexicography of word “tang.”

Last edited by kem (2009-02-13 11:55:10)