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#1 2010-07-01 20:23:00

David Bird
Eggcornista
From: The Hammer, Ontario
Registered: 2009-07-28
Posts: 1692

"downward sparrow" for downward spiral

There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ‘tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all.
27 unique legit ghits

Political blog
We’re tired of seeing our country slip into a downward sparrow of no jobs, a endless war with young people loosing their lives for no good cause

Movie review
This is perhaps my favorite horror film of all time, the relentless gloom and the downward sparrow of all the characters lives within it.

School trauma
MY DAUGHTERS day at this point began to be a downward sparrow of grief, shame and embarrassment.

Dire facebook prediction
If things continue in this downward sparrow, the very poor in society will become bitter and hence turn their wrath on the innocent Facebook generation

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#2 2010-07-01 22:15:16

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2715
Website

Re: "downward sparrow" for downward spiral

Bazeer! I love it! To go with the lark ascending, we have the sparrow descending.

Last edited by DavidTuggy (2010-07-02 07:23:24)


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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#3 2010-07-01 23:20:11

kem
Eggcornista
From: Victoria, BC
Registered: 2007-08-28
Posts: 2853

Re: "downward sparrow" for downward spiral

I think Mr. Bird has a pigeon for avian permutations.

Bazeer? Is this some club code no one has told me about?

Last edited by kem (2010-07-01 23:20:43)


Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.

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#4 2010-07-02 01:22:29

patschwieterman
Administrator
From: California
Registered: 2005-10-25
Posts: 1680

Re: "downward sparrow" for downward spiral

It’s so darn bazeer that I’m suspicious—I think Mr. Bird has been flying around posting things under 27 different assumed names and then claimed to have “found” them….

I’m not quite sure how to plug sparrow imagery into the idea of series of a negative consequences that build upon each other successively. But it’s an astonishing find in any case.

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#5 2010-07-02 07:26:54

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2715
Website

Re: "downward sparrow" for downward spiral

It’s just a bizarre permutation I had collected. (Or maybe a blend of bizarre and weird .)

Last edited by DavidTuggy (2010-07-03 07:39:55)


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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#6 2010-07-02 15:13:10

David Bird
Eggcornista
From: The Hammer, Ontario
Registered: 2009-07-28
Posts: 1692

Re: "downward sparrow" for downward spiral

Pat, it is reassuring to see that others have thought of planting eggcorns surreptitiously, to innocently bring to light an eggcorn that should have turned up in a search but just hasn’t had the luck to fry anyone’s synapses yet. I’ve often wondered what everyone’s list of never-rans, googlenopes, or as one early poster put it in order to sneak in a fast one, unattested eggcorns, would look like were they brought into the open. After the omega eggcorn is found, we might have a day of amnesty to publish those.

Take a pigeon for.

To me a downward sparrow is appealing because it enriches the original, through the introduction of the tradition of the God of the sparrow (from Matthew and Luke), which is carried forward in the quotation from Shakespeare above. That connection is why I suspected immediately that I would find downward sparrows on the web, after hearing someone pronounce “downward spiral” as if it were a bird. As David says, there is canonical falling sparrow.

Edit: Found another recent casualty. Maybe it hit a skyscraper at night.

a Programmer Analyst and Gospel Jazz Saxophonist in Fort Washington, Maryland decided to change Jobs to what turned into a tumbling downward economic sparrow.
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/KeithWilson

Last edited by David Bird (2011-11-09 08:31:32)

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#7 2010-07-03 11:32:41

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2715
Website

Re: "downward sparrow" for downward spiral

Today a memory came to me, of the old Garrison Keillor story (I’m sure it’s in one of his Lake Wobegon books, but I heard it on a broadcast aeons ago) of the Singing Gospel Birds. As I remember, during the collection of the offering, the congregation were instructed to hold their free-will offerings loosely between thumb and forefinger, high above their heads, and many were moved by the (holy?) ghostly feel of the wind from the wings of a dove as their offering was accepted. However, someone had the gracia (wish I could say that in English) to offer a silver dollar instead of the suggested paper money, and the poor bird flapped valiantly towards the collection plate at the front of the sanctuary, “losing altitude all the way.”
.
Anybody else remember that episode?

Last edited by DavidTuggy (2010-07-04 18:13:15)


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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