Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
You are not logged in.
The Eggcorn Forum and the Eggcorn Database are currently in the process of being converted into static sites.
Once the conversion is complete, all existing posts are expected to still be accessible at their original URLs. However, no new posts will be possible.
Feel free to comment on the relevant forum threads.
Chris -- 2025-05-10
I was all confusion. My mind was sent into a tale spin. After so many years, how could I face him?
.that is one of the things that put this whole country in a talespin in the first place people living beyond their means.
In a world so in a talespin, movies like this really draw people because deep down I think everyone knows something bigger than ourselves is at work in the world.
The mere mention of his name puts u in a talespin. Things u used to do no longer gve u pleasure. Friends provide little comfort. U’ve been afflicted !
Could of course be simply a spelling mistake, but there seem to be a lot of them. (Besides the purposeful usages, which are also many.) The eggcornic rationale would be that when you are in a talespin you are in a story (spun by a talespinner, of course) where anything bizarre may well happen, thus you are out of control (not to mention that, paradoxically, it is as well).
.
The more modern notion of spinning a story (putting a spin on it, reporting it in a tendentious rather than a straightforward fashion) is probably not so relevant, but might be in the mix too.
.
(The standard tailspin is, as I understand it, a reference to aeronautics; an airplane in a tailspin is about to crash.)
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2010-05-20 15:44:05)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
Offline
I like it a lot. It’s certainly sufficiently common, and the connection to spinning tales is too good to ignore. Caveat eggtor until we can get some of these perps downtown for questioning.
Last edited by David Bird (2010-05-20 22:35:00)
Offline
“Talespin” seems to have found a comfortable home in business talk-economies are always going into tailspins. In such a context, “talespin” seems eminently appropriate.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
Offline