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
(Since this is the section for things that aren’t eggcorns … it just caught my eye:)
Dan Hannan blogs: “Europe’s banks are staring at a Lehman moment. This is the tempest long foretold, slow to make head but sure to hold.â€
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
Offline
What do you make of “slow to make head”? A blend of headway and the storm clouds coming to a (thunder)head? And “sure to hold”? I think I’m having a senior’s moment because this poetic sentence seems to hold meaning that I can’t extract.
Offline
I remember pondering the same lines when David T first posted this. “Make head” is a phrase I’ve only seen in 19th C stuff outside of this Kipling poem, and I think it means “to advance, make progress,” though I couldn’t quickly confirm that. I think “hold” here means to be maintained, and both of those interpretations fit with the larger context of the poem—which refers to a tempest that’s been long a-brewing and won’t dissipate quickly.
Offline