Eggcorn Forum

Three hidden eggcorns with proper noun associations have come to my attention recently. One of them is PageRank, which we have discussed in this forum. PageRank is Google’s patented method for deciding which pages to show someone doing a Google search. It seems to be an allusion to web pages, but it is actually named after the algorithm’s inventor, Larry Page, Google’s co-founder.

Another proper noun has contributed to a medical confusion. A pap test, called a pap smear when I first heard about it, is an examination of a slide smear of cervical cells that is used to detect cancer. I assumed when I heard this term that it made some reference to women’s parts (“pap” is an old term for breast/teat) or to the gooey pap that is classically fed to infants (what do you smear, if not pappy stuff?). The test is actually named after the Greek doctor, Georgios Papanikolaou, who invented the test.

The third miss is a road name. My wife and I were driving through a nearby town, looking for a building she had visited. She told me to turn at “Towns End Road.” When I got there, the street sign said “Townsend Road,” named, presumably, after one of the many British-descended people with a Townsend surname. The surname probably derives from the phrase “towns end,” but I doubt that many think about its possible etymology when they hear the surname.

These hidden eggcorns are Aunty Lehmanns – words that result from turning a proper noun into a similar common noun. As in “Tajma Hall.” They are hidden because we have no clue, short of a confession, what speakers are thinking (though the last, “Townsend,” may be pronounced differently by some of those thinking about “towns end”).