Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
I ran across this one just today:
”...not to hearken back to the days of your, but now, there’s a pent up demand…” etc.
I’m thinking it may be an eggcorn rather than just a misspelling, as the person writing “days of your” may be thinking of the days of your past, or even the days of your ancestors, which may be a close enough meaning connection to “yore” for this to be a real eggcorn.
Unfortunately, googling doesn’t clarify this, because the phrase “days of your” in this sense gets lost in many millions of g-hits for things like “best days of your life”, etc.
Anyway, what sayest thou, eggcornistas?
Dixon
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It seems odd to me, from a sort of cognitive metaphor perspective, that the distant past would be associated with the present listener by using your. Though of course, people who hear days of yore start from the sound, and might make sense of it in just the way Dixon suggests. It sounds rather more like a pail to me, though – part of an expression that can be recognized as an element, though it doesn’t add anything obvious to the meaning of the expression.
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I could see it being related in the mind of the writers to “back in your day”, maybe. It’s not that uncommon. I’ve found some more examples below.
“There was a time, back in the days of your, when leaving your footprint on the planet referred to the good things you has accomplished. ” http://www.helium.com/knowledge/217735- … -footprint
“just as in days of your any self-respecting engineer would carry a sllide-ruke as a badge of office, or just as a medic carries a stethoscope” http://www.abelard.org/sums/teaching_nu … uction.php
“Just as it did in days of your, just as it
does on the other side, just as it will
forevermore.” http://www.weddingsmyway.com/Word/Memor … ochure.pdf
“these were often given as gifts in days of your by a young lady to a possible suitor” http://cgi.ebay.com/Antique-Three-Crown … .m20.l1116
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Nice examples, fpberger! How did you find them?
Dixon
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The first one just popped up when I searched “back in the days of your”, but there were also lots of “your childhood”, “your forefathers”, etc. Dropping “the” out of the phrase eliminated many of the “your (noun)” variants.
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There is another eggcorn in the line quoted by Dixon. “Hearken back” for “hark back.” “Hark,” as I mention in my eggcorn book, is a term from fox hunting. “Hearken” is an ancient AS term for “listen.”
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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I’ve just come across the simbling days of yon, implying some distance as in ‘hither and yon’ or here and there.
Peacocks are edible, it was all the rage ye olde days of yon to cook them and serve placed them back in their feathers (eww)
Since its hotter than a snakes butt in a wagon rut, why not go to the gun-tottin’ days of yon and go shooting?
Which makes sense to me, remembering days of yon when most men shaved with a cuthroat razor and used a plain strop or belt.
It’s not often acorn and eggcorn share a sentence:
Back in the days of yon and yore, waaaaayyyy back in 2008 they got $45 billion in bailouts.
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How can one online community, scattered hither and yore, determine what is globally acceptable? Flickr’s solution–more rightly, ...
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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These quaint old expressions hovering on the brink of extinction seem to have a soporific effect on some folk.
These steep sided canals dart through towns, across fields and hither and yawn, carrying the life-giving water to the crops.
Most of the conflict has so far centered around that famous body of water named for a German composer, Bach Springs, but has now spread hither and yawn.
Then the main spill began to give way and more radical erosion ensued with huge sections of concrete being unearthed and moved hither and yawn.
And who invited Heather?
I never did run down an actual bag of Bu’s Blend but not for lack of trying driving heather thither and yawn on my quest for the holy grail …
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“Driving Heather thither and yawn” ? The eppitoam of boredom, what?
Everyone’s running heather skether, Someone please bring in water!!.
A blend of helter-skelter with hither and thither, do you suppose?
.
Whatever: your version takes First in Class, in my book. I’m still chuckling.
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2022-06-24 18:47:46)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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