Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
A favourite false analogy/folk etymology that hasn’t been outed on this site yet is “outrage”. I know that Pat is chary of these old-timers, and perhaps he’s right. It’s not that they’re not eggcorns, but that perhaps they are better seen as “cute little oak-chicks breaking out of their eggcorns and growing into stately members of our lexical forest” (link). If we started picking up words at random and staring at them intently, we’d never stop finding them odd and provoking. Take Peter’s comment about “contact” and “contract” both being a bit out-of-whack in the context of disease transmission. And of course he’s right, too (link).
The OED has outrage coming from Anglo-Norman days. It started out somewhere near “ultrage”, as in a transgression, an overstepping of bounds. The apparent presence of out- and _-rage_ led to the development of its use in English to describe violations/infractions/insults that get the blood boiling: “I’m outraged!”.
That’s all. I’m at peace with outrage.
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I’m not chary of posts on folk etymologies—I simply don’t consider them eggcorns. Eggcorns by definition are non-standard, and folk etymologies—by some people’s definition, at any rate—are standard, so never the train can meet. But I’ve posted a few FE’s myself over the years, and I think your post on “outrageous” is quite a nice addition.
I couldn’t find any instances of “Never the train can meet,” and only one instance of “The train can never meet”:
Therefore, the Kiplingian dictum “the train can never meet” has no significance in the contemporary world.
http://www.here-now4u.de/ENG/the_need_f … _philo.htm
I also liked “Kiplingian.” “Kiplingesque” is currently getting 55,000 raw Google hits, but “Kiplingian” is a comer with 424 rGh. Keep watching this space….
Last edited by patschwieterman (2009-12-29 20:49:19)
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Since standardness is a matter of degree, those two trains must meet somewhere—eggcorns that become standard are folk etymologies.
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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Good one. Hidden amongst the puns:
your accomplishments are legendary and I have long awaited the opportunity to meet you. Problem we travel on two very different plains where never the train shall meet for now anyway.
(http://www.strategicprofits.com/blog/fr … emplates/#)
.
Wouldn’t that be we travel on two different planes?
two different languages…...two different wave lengths…and never the train shall meet....... :
(http://www.mapleleafup.org/forums/showt … hp?p=28082)
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patschwieterman wrote:
I also liked “Kiplingian.” “Kiplingesque” is currently getting 55,000 raw Google hits, but “Kiplingian” is a comer with 424 rGh….
This reminds me of a single-panel cartoon I saw nearly 60 years ago in a collection of even earlier New Yorker cartoons:
Suitor to young lady: “Do you like Kipling?”
Young lady: “I don’t know; I’ve never kippled.”
Last edited by Dixon Wragg (2018-10-02 17:56:38)
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