Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
Arnold Zwicky swallowed a terminal consonsant and turned ‘gold standard’ into ‘goal standard’; I decided to try it with a different mineral and got this. It’s an evocative phrase, since having a heart of coal suggests blackness and evil at one’s core. I even thought that this was intended by some users, and so wasn’t an eggcorn at all. But the relative scarcity of the phrase (600 ghits vs. 1.5 million for the original) convinces me that it usually is. Examples:
After four years of high-school finals, I heartily agree — final exams are godless, last-minute GPA killers administered by coal-hearted masochists.
www.sfgenerationnext.com/college101/200 … _19_03.htm
Fifty years after his reign of terror ended, the truth is finally out: McCarthy was a sweaty drunken coal-hearted boor ...
www.newhousenews.com/archive/lileks050703.html
Were conservatives cruel and coal-hearted before Bush-Cheney? www.nationalreview.com/murdock/murdock200408110859.asp
There’s nothing worse than reading a story in which every person you meet is either a coal-hearted villain or a pure sweet-blooded soul.
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/ … 4?v=glance
It was all very magical and romantic, even to a coal-hearted “no longer young†spinster like me.
www.jewishjournal.com/home/searchview.php?id=13721
Ah, but divorce lawyers aren’t the shark-finned, coal-hearted drudges you might think.
www.lasvegasmercury.com/2004/MERC-Feb-1 … 90373.html
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