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#1 2010-08-04 13:33:47

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

“bullicose” for “bellicose”

Bulls can certainly seem bellicose if you’re willing to extend the usual meaning of the word just a bit, so making them the root of “bellicose” works for me. This is quite rare – the three below are the only authentic-looking hits I could find. In fact, I’ve been sitting on this one for years since I could only find two hits, and I usually want a minimum of three before I bother with something. Weirdly, however, the first hit – which is entirely new to me even though I’ve gone looking a number of times – is dated to 2003. Huh. It took Google’s spiders a long time to work their way down to that one. “Bellycose” gets a few dozen hits, but they seem to be either misspellings or cruel jokes about angry overweight people. Examples:

The service WAS a good thing for me EVEN THO the
TIs threatened to hold me back in basic because they were irked at my casual
approach to the regimen and their bullicose hounding.
http://www.carkb.com/Uwe/Forum.aspx/stu … Stude-Meet

RUSSIA NOT BULLICOSE BUT DEFENDS ITS INTERESTS
http://ruvr.ru/eng/2007/06/05/w_55.html

the various bumper sticker themes of the Glorious War on Terrorism which then still included promises to track down Osama been Forgotten in addition to the bullicose threats building to roll over a grateful, liberated Iraqi nation and its would-be terrorist neighbors.
http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2007/0 … w-why.html

I found one hit on a tourist page about Granada, Spain, but it’s clear the writer was using “bullicose” as the English equivalent of Spanish “bullicioso” – “bustling”:

Today’s Granada always surprises the visitor with the great contrast between modernity and antiquity, between the Albayzín and Alhambra, with their peaceful cornes which fill the soul with memories of other eras, and the bullicose town below full of noise and bustle, “tuna” musicians, students, bars and tapas.
http://www.altur.com/eng/pgranada/granada/history.php3

On a completely unrelated topic, in the past few days we’ve been getting some sketchy, suspicious posts that don’t actually quite endorse a specific product or include commercial links. They’re probably just odd spam, but I’d hate to ban a clueless newbie who just looked like a spammer. For now I’m going to let them slide, but I’ll probably have to become more bullicose if we get a flood of this stuff or if it starts to bother any of the regulars.

Last edited by patschwieterman (2010-08-04 13:39:57)

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#2 2010-08-04 14:20:30

David Bird
Eggcornista
From: The Hammer, Ontario
Registered: 2009-07-28
Posts: 1690

Re: “bullicose” for “bellicose”

Off with their heads. Timid comments I welcome. Direct robotic copying from earlier posts in some obvious form of subterfuge is selling wolf tickets*.

Lotsa hits for belli >> bulli in bulligerent, I guess because the acorn’s a lot more common, and the e is more schwa- y (schwave maybe). This is the same eggcorn: a nice one, and justly mixed up with the subject of spammers.

Flickr photo
My city’s finest, sending my tenant’s bulligerent drunken friend on his way.

Myspace
whoever fucking hacked my myspace is a fucking douche!!!!!!
Mood: bulligerent

Right-wing steam vent
Bulligerent and unmindful government is taking over the banking industry

Edit: After writing this it occurred to me to check on the meaning of “selling woof tickets”, a phrase I learned from my treeplanting buddy Zorro from DC. I understood it to mean “asking for trouble”, but according to wikipedia, it’s more like “making idle threats”. Please substitute “asking for trouble”.

Last edited by David Bird (2010-08-04 14:52:58)

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#3 2010-08-04 16:52:37

kem
Eggcornista
From: Victoria, BC
Registered: 2007-08-28
Posts: 2851

Re: “bullicose” for “bellicose”

Even a few examples of “casus bulli,” a Latin expression mangled in several languages. (Though the Romance language examples have questionable eggcornicity, since they don’t have a “bull” cognate.)


Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.

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#4 2010-08-04 18:40:41

David Bird
Eggcornista
From: The Hammer, Ontario
Registered: 2009-07-28
Posts: 1690

Re: “bullicose” for “bellicose”

They might have other connections to “bull”, so I went looking for the context … egg freckles, I’m afraid, Kem.

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#5 2010-08-04 19:37:41

klakritz
Eggcornista
From: Winchester Massachusetts
Registered: 2005-10-25
Posts: 674

Re: “bullicose” for “bellicose”

Here’s another variant, with much the same connotation-

But in the face of basic feral human ballicose hatred it is nothing!
www.abctales.com/forum/.../israel-and-t … rt-muslims

...polytechnics were no less affected by ballicose nationalism’
www.jstor.org/stable/3517816

I know better than to take it personally especially when a customer is balligerent, but I fell into the trap and had taken it personally.
moonwalkforum.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=13770…

It is sad commentary, on our lives, when balligerent ranting is accepted as typical rather than atypical for the use of our 1st Amendment rights.
tv.yahoo.com/the-view/show/253/reviews?start=2663…5…

The main reason I hate the Red Sox is becuase of the balligerent Boston fans that insist on yelling “Go Sohox!”
encyclopediadramatica.com/Red_Sox_Nation

In earlier hearings, some senators became ballicose, but only because respondent officials refused to answer the most basic questions.
findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_7968/is_2006…/ai_n34265501/

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#6 2010-08-04 19:43:37

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

Re: “bullicose” for “bellicose”

Ken—interesting. Do you think the eggcorn logic is that it takes balls to be so confrontational?

David—a much better evidenced version than my original post. And my own pronunciation of “belligerent” seems pretty indistinguishable from “bulligerent.”

Well, okay, I decapitated the more robotic one. But I’m biting my time with the one whose Voight-Kampff profile seems more ambiguous; I’ll ask him about his mother the next time I see him.

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