Eggcorn Forum

[Edit: turns out Craig beat me to this—see the end of the post. Anyhow, useful to have more write-up/evidence.] I thought I heard this in the speech of a friend; I didn’t want to make him self-conscious by asking about it, but it turns out to be widespread. There are about 260 ughits right now – a relatively large number – and most of the examples below appear to come from the writing of legal professionals or politicians. (The exception comes from our friends at the CNN transcription desk, who have diligently provided eggcornistas with plenty of raw material over the years. Our heads are off to you guys!). This clearly makes sense to lots of people, and it makes sense to me, too – you have a “descending opinion” about something when your opinion about it is a little “lower” than everybody else’s; the reshaping matches up very well with the directional metaphors we already use with the acorn. Examples:

While making decisions on the cases determined by Paragraph 1 and 2 of Article 100 of the Constitution the Constitutional Court Member can present a descending opinion on the final as well as on the reasoning part of the decision, which is published in the Constitutional Court Bulletin together with the Court decision.
http://www.concourt.am/english/law_cc/index.htm

As Lord Kilbrandon in a descending opinion in the seminal case of Arenson v. Arenson &Casson Beckman and Ruttey & Co.[12]asserted “the citizen does not select the judges in this system, nor does he remunerate them …the judge has no bargain with the parties…he pledges them no skill…his duties are to the state.”
http://www.inter-lawyer.com/lex-e-scrip … munity.htm

In the descending opinion, Justice Thomas complimented South Carolina’s policy; however, we found it necessary to tie up some loose ends for more assurance.
http://kevinbryant.com/2006/06/

This decision came with a very strong descending opinion saying that the pledge was constitutional, so it was a two to one opinion by the three judge panel.
http://archives.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0206/26/bn.07.html

[Later edit: Oops—Craig C. Clarke posted on dissent>>descent a couple of years ago here: http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/forum/view … p?id=2640; I didn’t find it till I thought to drop the participial ending.]

Last edited by patschwieterman (2010-08-10 00:17:19)