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Chris -- 2018-04-11
This deliberate pun has been made in a Language Log post. I wondered how many people hearing “It’s just semantics” did think they’d heard “some antics”.
Almost all the Google hits are puns on purpose but in amongst them there are a handful which might have resulted from a reshaping:
“There needs to be more awareness about the connection between low-level hazing and the high risks associated with it,” Allan continues. “People ask: What’s the big deal if it’s all in good fun, it’s just some antics, and everyone has a good time? The problem is that the low-level incidents set the stage for power dynamics to be in place and normalized as part of the group setting. It has a slippery slope effect—it’s likely the low-level behaviors will turn into high risk activities over time.”
The speaker might even have said “semantics” and the mis/re understanding was the reporter’s.
But I don’t see how to prove it.
(Re-understanding is quite a good word when talking about eggcorns)
Last edited by JuanTwoThree (2014-10-18 04:20:34)
On the plain in Spain where it mainly rains.
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JuanTwoThree wrote:
But I don’t see how to prove it.
By finding a (or preferably a number of independent) confessions by perps. For this one I would almost expect some out there. But with such a good pun you’d want to be sure the confessions weren’t jokes as well. (All confessions have to be taken on faith and with a grain of salt.)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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In an article about hazing it is hard to judge whether they mean it is just a semantic argument as to whether the word “hazing” really means something only fun for all concerned, or is more sinister, akin to bullying. Or perhaps the writer / speaker thinks hazing is fun, and is just a bunch of silly antics (“some antics”).
I have found other ambiguous examples, including the obviously knowing “some antics about semantics”.
I did find a few which seem to be definite eggcorns:
http://www.itsalltrue.net/?p=12590 (in the comments)
“i get what you’re playing at beedo, but it’s just some antics” (also notable for “playing at” being oddly used here, meaning somewhere between “I get what you are saying” and “I get what you are driving at”)
http://forums.riftgame.com/general-disc … lls-5.html
“Arguing that it’s not a ranged weapon attack ability is a ridiculous some-antics argument tbh.”
http://www.webranking.com/blog/social-m … ate-letter
Comments: “kinda sounds more like a “dear john†letter than a love letter, but you know…who’m i to argue over some antics?”
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he will buy a ridiculous hat – Scott Adams (author of Dilbert)
Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a day; set a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life – Terry Pratchett
http://blog.meteorit.co.uk
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