Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
This is amazingly common. Books.google.com lists hundreds of examples, including instances in works by Edith Wharton, John le Carre, Bret Harte and James Baldwin. For some reason, it turns up with particular frequency in the work of science fiction writers, including some of the best – Brian Aldiss, Gene Wolfe, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Theodore Sturgeon. “Pursue * lips†has clearly achieved a certain degree of invisibility for some editors.
Elrond pursued his lips and swallowed, uncomfortable with this casual
talk about women.
“Well I hope that Elbereth has a nice time tomorrow night,†muttered
Elrond to himself.
http://www.libraryofmoria.com/glorfinde … member.txt
The Speaker listened to his request, waggled his eyebrows, pursued his lips as if to say something important and then decided not to.
http://tomroeser.com/sectionlist.asp?s= … &year=2007
The General pursued his lips and watched Steve shrewdly for a moment.
http://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/dixon/dixon.html
I pointed up the hillside and he pursued his lips.
http://www.cordula.ws/stories/trueworth.html
[From a story by Michael G. Coney, a decent SF writer who lived up in Kem’s neck of the woods.]
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To be so widespread it must surely be an infectious mis-spelling, some sort of acquired spelling-affectation. Lips which are pursued might be particularly kissable I suppose, but for some reason I see pursed lips as likelier to be wrinkled in disapproval with the synonym puckered getting more of the romantic attention.
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Pursue in these examples is almost completely invisible to me – I have to stare directly at the word to see that it’s misspelled. It occurs to me that, whereas an eggcorn is a semantic reshaping of a word or phrase, this might be a case where there is a change to the shape of your face that better reflects the meaning of the word . I don’t purse my lips when I say “purse” but I do when I say “pursue”.
Last edited by David Bird (2009-12-15 17:26:29)
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