Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
You are not logged in.
Registrations are currently closed because of a technical problem. Please send email to
The forum administrator reserves the right to request users to plausibly demonstrate that they are real people with an interest in the topic of eggcorns. Otherwise they may be removed with no further justification. Likewise, accounts that have not been used for posting may be removed.
Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
I’ve just encountered this in a local email chat: “Sounds like Mafia who protect the once who pay.” Never saw that one before, and it doesn’t seem to have been discussed here on the Eggcorn Forum, either. Googling yielded about 490 unique hits. A few examples:
To the once who have followed me all along my vacation I can tell You that I have bought a pair of flip-flops…
The 80% is all republicans,they are the once who put our economy in the situation that it is in and they are the once who are keeping it where it is…
Because u once believed that they are the once who wont ever betray you.
The people who are willing to taint their decks were once the once who managed to push the storyline forward.
In the two quotes above, note the two different uses of “once” in close proximity!
He is the one true God, the Once who created the universe.
Note that in the above quote, God is called both the “one” and the “Once”! WTF?
Interesting, since he was the once who succumbed to sabotage this time around.
Note that in those last two quotes, “once” is substituted for the singular “one”, not for “ones”, which seems very strange to me. At least the once/ones confusion is understandable in terms of their very similar pronunciations (in fact, in some dialects, they may be pronounced the same), but once/one? What’s the excuse for that?
I’m not calling it an eggcorn, since I can see no meaning connection. But it’s interesting enough to share here on the Eggcorn Forum, I think.
Offline