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
I was talking to a relative of mine on the phone this morning when he seemed to say that someone he was describing had been “raped over the coals.†I was dying to ask him to pause his story for a moment and tell me about that phrase. But at the same time that I’d love to get first-hand accounts of what eggcorns mean for their users, I feel a little weird about potentially making my friends and relatives self-conscious every time they talk to me. So instead I just kept going “uh huh, uh huh,†while I quickly made a note on the computer. Ah, the insincerities implicit in being an eggcorn-hunter.
“Raped over the coals†currently gets 62 ughits; I’m sure other permutations would up the tally. A number of those are actually from people talking about the phrase as a malaprop or “Farberism,†and some other people put “raped†in quotes, signaling that they’re aware there’s something non-standard about the usage.
I think there’s actually an eggcorn and a new, non-eggcornical phrase here. The standard meaning of “raked over the coals†is something like “criticized, taken to task for.†And some of the users of “raped over the coals†are certainly employing it in that way. In that regard the reshaping is rather hideous: rape is being thought of as a form of punishment, but it certainly fits the larger context, as an eggcorn should.
In the majority of examples, however, “raped over the coals†seems to mean “exploited, cheated.†“Raped†is of course sometimes used informally in that sense, and in these cases the presence of “raped†seems to be shifting the meaning of the phrase as a whole. David T. and Joe might consider it to be an eggcorn on those grounds, but I wouldn’t. Of course, my analysis is complicated by the fact that it’s possible to find instances where “raked over the coals” also means “exploited, cheated.” But that sense constitutes a much lower percentage of uses of the standard phrase.
And in at least one of the instances below, I can make an argument either way. Examples:
I am thinking once the ACLU has their way that school board will feel like they had been raped over the coals. Make that an enema for 12.
http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuse … =517795591
I hope Woods is raped over the coals by his wife and loses all endorsements.
http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2 … ther-women
go to Hornsby for a traffic offence and you are likely to be raped over the coals.
http://www.skylinesaustralia.com/forums … 4323&st=40
What does that say for the sorry state of affairs that is Radnor Township?
Rudderless and directionless, save for what the taxpayers are being raped over the coals for…
http://justsnarky.blogspot.com/2009_12_01_archive.html
After being raped over the coals the first time we used professional movers, we were scared to use professionals for our move to Dallas.
http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:_f … =firefox-a
A true price complaint should be laid in the video card department, that’s where we’re getting raped over the coals at.
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/sho … 989&page=2
I recently got raped over the coals (that’s right, isn’t it?) at Best Buy, who are the only suburban computer repair game in town since the implosion of Circuit City.
http://www.thesickburn.net/2009_05_01_archive.html
When people use idioms that they have NEVER read, only heard and they butcher them:
For all intensive purposes vs. Forall intents and purposes,
I was raped over the coals vs. I was raked over the coals,
http://hunterdjohnson.wordpress.com/200 … et-peeves/
Last edited by patschwieterman (2010-01-30 22:13:03)
Offline
There is, as you say, an eggcorn somewhere there.
I’ve been thinking about the phrase “raked over the coals.” Kind of odd, when you think about it. Why “raked,” and why “over” instead of “in” or “through?”
The idiom has obscure roots. Poking around on the net, I found a couple of references to its origin in inquisition tactics—eliciting (illiciting?) a confession using hot coals. These are folk etymologies, I think. The phase doesn’t pop up until the middle of the nineteenth century, long after the popular period for fiery martyrdom.
A more reasonable source of “rake X over the coals” meaning “to reprimand” might be the idiom “rake over the coals” meaning “to bring to remembrance.” The OED has a citation for this phrase/meaning combination from 1857: “I cannot specify. If I should go back for a year or two, to rake over the coals of my recollection, I might, perhaps.” When a fire in a fireplace or stove was dying, it could be revived by turning over the coals and letting in more air. Coals were turned over with a fire rake (a poker or some similar device). So raking over a fire meant giving it new life. When the action was applied metaphorically to memory, it came to mean bringing something to the fore that had been forgotten, giving it fresh presence. The phase could have been applied with an object postfixed (“rake-over-the-coals X”) with the sense of “call to memory something that had been forgotten or overlooked about X.” Moving the postfix object to an infix position and restricting it to a personal object (“rake X over the coals”) would give us the idiom for a reprimand.
Last edited by kem (2010-02-03 22:46:48)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
Offline
Raped over the coals. Bafflingly common and a great find.
Offline