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Chris -- 2018-04-11
Irascible, the quality of short-fusedness, often attracts an extra “r,†becoming “irrascible,†as though it contained the negative “in-“ prefix that we find in “irreverent,†“irrevocable,†“irrespective,†and “irrepressible.†The doubled consonant has no basis in etymology, however. “Irascible†harks back to the Latin ira, anger (cf. dies irae, day of wrath).
The web has a dozen or more examples of “irascible†with the word “rash†in it, spelled both as “irashible†and “irrashible.†The change may be semantically motivated: irascibility does contains a large dollop of rashness.
Three examples:
Dog description: “She is aggressive and … irashible and never gives up nothingâ€
Ex-Scientologist message board post: “ Rather irashible. But it does present an opportunity for me to reassert what I observedâ€
Comment on online gaming site: “we have had the 2 main oc supervisors in our war channel and the opponents flaming was irrashible and unnotedâ€
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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Good one. The irashible rash easily. Irascible could be a word you knew and understood but mispronounced in your head. Irassible? Irashible? Iraskible? It must be that they’ve heard someone pronounce it as irashible. Another guess I’ve seen is erasable, which doesn’t make sense.
Trouble with asci gives me an excuse to mention one of my fave poteaux roses, one that is abundant on the net: fâchiste for fasciste. To be fâché is to be angry, from the same root as our fastidious. So fâchistes are irritated and disdainful and fussy. Neatness is fâchiste.
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