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Chris -- 2025-05-10
I received an email recently inquiring about a de-cell project in Victoria, Australia.
Looking a bit further there seems to be a lot of talk about decellination rather than desalination. A quick google search reveals:
“They have built in pipes for recycled water and decellination”
“GCDA Decellination Project. Gold Coast”
” I was just wondering on people’s opinion on decellination plants”
“The more you build they more u can obtain. then maybe later have the ability to build dams or resovoirs, and finally decellination plants”
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A warm welcome to you, joshums!
I’ve never seen this “decellination” one—what a hoot! I’m not sure it’s an actual eggcorn, because I’m not sure those who come up with it are attributing a relevant meaning to the word “decellination”, as opposed to just mishearing and misspelling it. Maybe the fact that the term looks and sounds kinda scientific is enough of a meaning-connection; I dunno. Any opinions from others?
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I think you’ve got it right, Dixon. There are other spellings out there, most from Australia, that are also graeco-roman in form but lacking in logic, such as decelenation1. Decellination is one of those words it would be great to have a first person account of.
1. Yes, some do make it to deceleration plant.
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If I thought they were purifying the water of bacteria rather than salt, I might think “decellination” made sense. Or maybe I could come up with some connection between battery cells and salt water conducting?
Last edited by fpberger (2011-02-02 16:00:17)
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I like the deceleration plant that burred suggests even better. When you’ve got all this ocean water rushing at you in waves, you first need to decelerate it so you can grab a cupful.
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