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Chris -- 2018-04-11
On the radio the other day I heard – or thought I heard, for I don’t know what the difference is – someone use this eggcornish substitute which suggests, much like the original, unnecessary attention to detail.
Only one example I’m afraid, but I’m quite partial to these solitary specimens.
11lts was all that it would take (now not to label the point, but when I got to the Texaco services on the A38, they didn’t ask me to get off the bike, ...
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or thought I heard, for I don’t know what the difference is
From the point of view of linguistic analysis, not much. But the consequences for your personal life might be more significant.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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kem wrote:
“or thought I heard, for I don’t know what the difference is†. From the point of view of linguistic analysis, not much. But the consequences for your personal life might be more significant.
Even for linguistic analysis, it would presumably be the difference between a malapropism (they actually said it and you heard it) and something more mondegrenous (you thought you heard it, though you really didn’t). And as Kem notes, the practical consequences are potentially serious. But as you were saying (I think), it’s pretty hard to tell by yourself which thing happened. It’s handy if somebody else is there whom you can ask, “Did you hear what I think I heard?â€
.
Not to belabel the point.
.
(Which, by the way, occurs, but the googled exx. pretty much all mean “labelâ€, with sometimes a dollop of despision added: e.g. “[the names you choose] should not stigmatize or belabel the products.â€)
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2010-02-04 11:50:01)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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I’ve used the “I thought I heard” formula in a number of posts—most recently in the “raped over the coals” one—and for me there’s a difference. Even when I’m in a one-on-one conversation, my mind has a tendency to wander. Sometimes that will be happening, and I’ll realize belatedly that something just said seems a bit surprising—“Wait, did s/he just say what I thought I heard?” And then I’m in the position of either revealing my inattention and asking for a clarification or keeping mum and worrying that I’m laboring under a misconception. But sometimes I’ve been listening keenly, and then I’m positive I just heard a non-standard phrase or whatever. I always label the two situations differently. When I’m sure, I’m sure I’m sure, but when I’m unsure, I’m sure I’m unsure.
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It’s interesting to see others’ views on hearing/listening/attending or otherwise intercepting speech for clearly we don’t, or think we don’t, all do it in the same way. It may be due to the wide range of dialects/accents I may encounter on a daily basis but it often seems that, if my ears were eyes, I’m listening with rods rather than cones, losing colour but at least gaining an image. And I’m not alone in, having listened carefully (using my cones of course) to a lengthy and detailed weather report, being left with not the haziest notion of what kind of weather will arrive tomorrow.
On the labour/label front it strikes me that I may have heard a Bristolian because, as Phrase Finder puts it:
Just as an aside, Bristol has another linguistic claim to fame. In earlier days the town was called Bristowe (or Brigstow). A quirk of the local spoken dialect is to add els to the end of words, hence Bristowe became Bristol. Another nice example of this is the name for the laminate sheeting used on worktops. You might call this Formica; in Bristol it is Formical.
To my ear a Cockney accent returns Bristol to Bristowe.
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And I’m not alone in, having listened carefully (using my cones of course) to a lengthy and detailed weather report, being left with not the haziest notion of what kind of weather will arrive tomorrow.
This persistent belief that there is some connection between weather reports and the actual weather in the British Isles one of the most charming aspects of British character.
When I’m sure, I’m sure I’m sure, but when I’m unsure, I’m sure I’m unsure.
One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don’t do anything at all.
Last edited by kem (2010-02-05 11:38:21)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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Cuban singer
As if it were necessary to beleaguer the point, Picasso declared her a musical genius after catching one of her shows
Stock meeting
Not to blabber the point on the credit facility, but can you give us a little color about the November reassessment …
The latter is from a voice transcript, but I couldn’t pass it up.
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