Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2025-05-10
Being a linguist originally from outside Boston, I can’t help but notice that a lot of the misunderstandings are from rhotic tendencies. “Giga counter/meter” is obviously a non-rhotic form, while things like “jar dropping” have an intrusive R (as in JFK’s “Cubar is a threat” but “We will not be threatened by Cuba”). It’s very common for people from New York, Boston, and Providence to insert an R between words where the first ends with a vowel (“Cuba”) and the next starts with one (“is”).
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