Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
You are not logged in.
Registrations are currently closed because of a technical problem. Please send email to
The forum administrator reserves the right to request users to plausibly demonstrate that they are real people with an interest in the topic of eggcorns. Otherwise they may be removed with no further justification. Likewise, accounts that have not been used for posting may be removed.
Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
Most of the 50+ ughits are hentai sites (how do they compose their gobbledegook – and why?) but the remainder can be construed as curate’s-eggcornish at least, despite the reversed familiarity-ratio.
A brazier might be misinterpreted as someone who is brazen in the sense of being bold and defiant of convention, admirable characteristics for a genuine trail-blazer I imagine. There is also, perhaps, the suggestion of heat and light in the cold darkness of night:
He is a recipient of the “Kool Achieverâ€, a national award that recognizes outstanding civic leadership, and has been awarded the Trail Brazier Award a …
www.fastpitchnetworking.com/.../LIONMAN … AL-SR.html
But Voice of America’s Shaka Ssali who describes Wamala as a giant pillar, a pathfinder, a lightening rode, a trail brazier, all rolled into one in terms of …
blogafrica.allafrica.com/view/entry/main/main/.../06nMHq5lfApjEI_Q.html
He was the pioneer and trail brazier who came before Arthur and Stanley did 2001, before Gene did Star Trek and before Lost in Space was a concept. ...
www.fsl.cs.sunysb.edu/pipermail/b5jms/1 … 01456.html
Since Liberty Life claims to offer a number of corporate relationship advantages to its clients, I trust the new player may choose to be the trail brazier …
209.88.21.55/opencms/opencms/grnnet/OPM/.../news_0007.html
BUT THE CHEV TRAIL BRAZIER HAS A BIG V6 AND I SEE THEM PULLING LIKE 22 FT PLUS BOATS. HOPE YOU FIND OUT WHAT YOU NEED HERE. Replies to this message: ...
townhall-talk.edmunds.com/direct/view/.ef11ecf/1488
Offline
Trail brazier – wonderful. Simultaneously forward-looking and medieval.
In North America (and perhaps globally) “braziers” are still burning – in the Burger King. Given my degenerate proclivities, I always thought that their brazier burger was a none-too-subtle attempt to compete with MacDonald’s’ mammary Golden Arches.
Offline
Isn’t a trail blazer a deerskin jacket?
Last edited by kem (2009-12-30 22:51:07)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
Offline
Peter Forster wrote:
… the remainder can be construed as curate’s-eggcornish at least, despite the reversed familiarity-ratio.
Remind me what curate’s eggcornishness is about?
.
I’m guessing it’s the sort of thing you find on sites that try consciously to use archaic language? E.g. medieval war-gaming sites, Jane Austen fanfics or other writing aspiring to reflect the language of a particular bygone era and/or foreign venue. Is that it? You choose to use what is to you the less common word in place of the common one (thus effecting the reversed familiarity ratio), assuming the two coincide even when they don’t, committing interesting malapropisms, some of them eggcornish, in the process.
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
Offline
Sorry to be so unintentionally obscure, David, but sometimes it’s easy to forget there are expressions that haven’t floated or flown far since hatching. Here’s Michael Quinion’s explanation from his excellent ‘World Wide Words’ –
[Q] From Brian Smith in California: Could you please give the meaning and derivation of the curate’s egg?
[A] Perhaps I should start by explaining curate, since I’m told that this name for a junior ecclesiastical post is not well known outside Britain. A curate is an ordained minister who is an assistant to a vicar or parish priest; he (these days sometimes she) is at the bottom of the priestly pecking order, poorly paid and with no job security.
Let us now turn to the humorous British magazine Punch for 9 November 1895, which featured a cartoon drawn by George du Maurier. This showed a timid curate having breakfast in his bishop’s home. The bishop is saying “I’m afraid you’ve got a bad egg, Mr Jonesâ€, to which the curate replies, in a desperate attempt not to give offence: “Oh, no, my Lord, I assure you that parts of it are excellent!â€.
Readers liked this exchange so much that the cartoon led to the catchphrases “parts of it are excellentâ€, and “good in partsâ€, which are recorded from the beginning of the twentieth century. The phrase curate’s egg itself means something that is partly good and partly bad and so not wholly satisfactory: “this book is a bit of a curate’s eggâ€. (Despite one American dictionary, it does not mean “something discreetly declared to be partly good but in fact thoroughly badâ€, which would be its literal interpretation.)
By ‘curate’s eggcorn’ I meant no more than an eggcorn “good in parts” but, again, not wholly satisfactory.
Offline