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#1 2010-07-09 19:01:12

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

circumbent/circumwent << circumvent

Bringing a buried post into its own header and enlarging it….

Sneaky Beadwof has been at work on the good Latin “circumvent,” corrupting it to the half-Teutonic “circumbent”

Comment on site maintained by a politico: “the decision as to what stays and what goes is made at the POS; not at the Ballot Box—which again is a tool to* circumbent* consumer-will.”

Computer bulletin board: “I have tried to circumbent these issues for the past two weeks and have nothing to show for.”

Software forum: “I guess that means that, like me, a lot of people are using Meebo to circumbent their company’s firewall ”

and “circumwent.”

Slashdot post: “So when is the Global Internet Freedom Consortium (GIFC) going to offer tools to circumwent our own capitalistic censorship machine?”

Web fiction from NZ: “You just trust to Jim Days, he’ll find away to circumwent the natives, and nary a party be the wuss for it.”

Harry Potter bulletin board: “I guess Dumbledore having studied the cloak knew how it worked and was able to circumwent its protection.”

A significant number of hits for both of these. Many of the occurrences of “circumwent” derive, to no surprise, from German sources.


Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.

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#2 2010-07-09 20:58:18

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

Re: circumbent/circumwent << circumvent

“Circumwent” is delightful. It made me wonder whether anyone ever circumgoes anything. Yes, they do. “They” seem to be largely gamers and techies.

All he had to do was to circumgo the mines (which he couldn’t see, but the chance they’re upgraded is pretty high) and destroy your dozer.
http://www.gamereplays.org/community/in … try7415886

My second problem: To circumgo the first problem, I tried simply to call GetMidiInputRaw() in a loop, but it seems that the status is always 192 after & 0×000000F0 (according documentation) to raw input value, although the channel and data values are changing
http://www.midiox.com/cgi/yabb/YaBB.pl? … 1048546707

We advise you to use this only when there is really a need to get rid of those ruins or you would lose too much time to circumgo them.
http://www.gamereplays.org/cncgenerals/ … g-up-ruins

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#3 2010-07-10 03:56:09

Peter Forster
Eggcornista
From: UK
Registered: 2006-09-06
Posts: 1224

Re: circumbent/circumwent << circumvent

Nice finds indeed – while searching for a variant I came across this:

Newly formulated rules are not meant to be retroactive or else it’ll lead 2 chaos and disorder. Ur just forcing us 2 create dummy accts to circumbend the …

which led to this:

www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-cir1.htm

Last edited by Peter Forster (2010-07-10 03:59:59)

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#4 2010-07-10 07:58:00

David Bird
Eggcornista
From: The Hammer, Ontario
Registered: 2009-07-28
Posts: 1691

Re: circumbent/circumwent << circumvent

Enjoyable finds all a-round. How have we managed all these years without being able to circumgo, circumbend and then circumwent? Circumcome we have: that is circumvent. Part of the appeal of circumwent lies in its reversal of the circuit’s direction with the change of one letter. Another part is in Beadwof’s admirable justice (I might not have the right word here – a translation of French justesse; appropriateness and precision maybe), evident from the parallel conjugation of forgo into forgoing, forgone and forwent (or into the perfectly confused eggcorn foregone conclusion). Now we can undergo, overgo and circumgo. More hits:

Germanic online community
If they sound realistic, then that’d be a cool way of circumgoing my percussion handicap….

Hungarian essay on thermodynamics
Pig lard circumgoes most problems in frying pans.

Incidentally, we can also circumstand, apparently. That would not be Beadwof’s handiwork, would it? Stand goes way back.

Concert notes
After the pomp and circumstand, the entertainment begins.

Last edited by David Bird (2010-07-10 10:07:21)

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#5 2010-07-10 10:35:48

jorkel
Eggcornista
Registered: 2006-08-08
Posts: 1456

Re: circumbent/circumwent << circumvent

Circumwent is a great find; It just sounds so much like a real word … inspired by circumvent in makeup and circumnavigate in meaning. Er… have we truly ascertained that circumwent isn’t a real word? What’s to stop us from affixing the prefix circum- to just any base word? Perhaps I could use an English lesson.

Last edited by jorkel (2010-07-10 11:17:24)

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#6 2010-07-10 11:12:09

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

Re: circumbent/circumwent << circumvent

have we ascertained that circumwent isn’t a real word?

Not in the OED or any published dictionary I have access to.

One does wonder about the influence of “undergo,” “underwent” on the development of “circumgo,” “circumwent.” It is possible that some users of “circumwent” have not eggcorned it from “circumvent” but have coined it de novo by analogy with the “under-” words.


Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.

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#7 2010-07-10 11:19:33

jorkel
Eggcornista
Registered: 2006-08-08
Posts: 1456

Re: circumbent/circumwent << circumvent

Sorry Kem… I modified my previous post while you were responding to it, so the question you quoted got altered a slight bit. Even so, I think your answer suffices.

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#8 2010-07-10 11:51:04

David Bird
Eggcornista
From: The Hammer, Ontario
Registered: 2009-07-28
Posts: 1691

Re: circumbent/circumwent << circumvent

The multiple hits for circumwenting and circumwented probably augur and argue for an origin in circumvent. On the other hand, my brother was fond of saying “Let’s get wenting.”

(From Sweden) Which is more ethical, a computer or a human?
People are in fact very clever in circumwenting restrictions in order to do what has to be done.

Do see the pictorial evidence of humans circumwenting restrictions in the above post.

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#9 2010-07-10 11:57:10

jorkel
Eggcornista
Registered: 2006-08-08
Posts: 1456

Re: circumbent/circumwent << circumvent

Yes, mine was an accidental circumwention of restrictions.

Speaking of which…

Koheleth: A novel – Google Books ResultLewis Austin Storrs – 1897 – 265 pages
Not I, Lemee,” said Muggs; ” your pa, he says to me, ’ Muggs,’ he says, ’ look arter the fence,’ an’ you can trust Muggs to put a circumwention on a ‘oman. ...
books.google.com/books?id=pJseAAAAMAAJ…

Last edited by jorkel (2010-07-10 12:00:19)

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#10 2010-07-11 01:54:44

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

Re: circumbent/circumwent << circumvent

Jorkel wrote:

What’s to stop us from affixing the prefix circum- to just any base word?

Robert Herrick (1591-1674) replied (see line 5):

[“His Sailing from Julia”]
WHEN that day comes, whose evening says I’m gone
Unto that watery desolation,
Devoutly to thy closet-gods then pray
That my wing’d ship may meet no remora.
Those deities which circum-walk the seas,
And look upon our dreadful passages,
Will from all dangers re-deliver me
For one drink-offering poured out by thee.
Mercy and truth live with thee ! and forbear
(In my short absence) to unsluice a tear ;
But yet for love’s sake let thy lips do this,
Give my dead picture one engendering kiss :
Work that to life, and let me ever dwell
In thy remembrance, Julia. So farewell.

Before my earlier post, I actually went looking for “circumgo” in the OED because it has so much the feel of one of those playful coinages from the 17th-18th centuries. Maybe they didn’t bother with circumgo because they already had “circumwalk.”

Kem wrote:

One does wonder about the influence of “undergo,” “underwent” on the development of “circumgo,” “circumwent.”

That seems like a really reasonable suggestion to me. Do we have to choose between circumvent and undergo as underlying influences? We’ve seen lots of blends, with speakers clearly thinking about two words at once—this situation seems only a tad subtler.

David B. wrote:

Hungarian essay on thermodynamics
Pig lard circumgoes most problems in frying pans.

I think I would have enjoyed lectures on thermodynamics much better if there had been a lot more pig lard involved.

Last edited by patschwieterman (2010-07-11 01:56:20)

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