Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
But estimated times of the separation of European and Asian ancestors in this population does not chime well with the archaeological evidence for the continuous settlement of Australia from much earlier times.
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“Their take on the world doesn’t chime with ours.” Nik Ward, head of Westminster Council’s Rough Sleepers Department says of the immigrants he’s looking to clean off the streets.
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Eulogy on Paisley does not chime with reality
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These examples are from the UK. Could “chime with” be standard lingo there? If one of these three is an eggcorn, which is the eggcorn and which the acorn(s)? The Google Ngram Viewer shows “chime with” as almost as old as “gibe with”, while “jibe with” is more recent, as seen here.
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Interesting fuzzy spot: jib, jibe, gybe, gibe, gibbet, jive, chime. A recent article wonders whether these words (except jive) are not related. The grammarphobia blog also considers the connections. Chime with looks to be the first minted. It’s not clear that any of these are eggcorns or folk etymologies, unless it be jibe with for chime with. And of course jibe » jive.
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David, the first link you give above leads to a page in French that doesn’t appear to be related to this discussion.
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jive << jibe is already on the list, of course.
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For me chime with , which I am not particularly used to though I may have heard or seen it, sounds like it means something on the order of “harmonize with, make a pleasant sound together with.†When someone chimes in with a comment in a conversation, you know the comment was an agreement of some kind, not easily a contradiction, certainly not of the main point.
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2015-07-30 13:34:32)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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The first link must be behind a paywall. Try this, while maintaining a purely academic interest.
Tocayo, are you talking about the possible confusion of meaning of gibe (positive), jibe (negative, potentially, when it’s not an alternate spelling) and jive (negative, potentially) with?
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I have a UK background and “chime with” sounds standard to me. I always thought the idea of harmony/accord was the origin of the phrase. Here in NZ, I’m pretty sure I’ve heard “chime with”, “jibe with”, “jive with”, the lot.
I really like that Grammarphobia page. Here the nautical sense of jibe/gybe enters the mainstream every four years or so, with each running of the America’s Cup.
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Hadn’t really thought about “jibe” as a contranym, but it seems to be. To taunt and to agree with are decidedly antithetical.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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Ooh, another nym that I was unaware of.
I was thinking that there should be a word describing an obscure term that is briefly thrust into the limelight by some national or world event, such as “jibe”/”gybe” which I just mentioned, or “liquefaction” when we had the earthquakes in Christchurch, or, right now, “flaperon”.
How about an ephemeronym (or is that too hard to say)?
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How about an ephemeronym
Lovely coinage. With an all-Greek pedigree, unlike contranym.
I’m just reading Predicting New Words: The Secrets of Their Success, a 2002 book by the etymologist Allan Metcalf. The author tries to understand why so many good neologisms turn into ephemeronyms. Many of the American Dialectic Societies Words of the Year, chosen annually since 1991, have failed to take lasting root in the language.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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