Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
I’d have sworn this was already in the forum or database somewhere, but didn’t find it the normal way.
I hold myself back, hoping to somehow lesson the blow that I know I will receive
it had the potential to lesson some of Charles’ annual income. … It occurs to me that such an event will lesson the tensions
Her introspection lessoned as she focused on her sister’s future
Thomas hoped rather than believed that the attachment might lesson upon further acquaintance.
She attempted to lesson her nervousness by teasing William. … My maid brought me some blackberry tea—it often helps to lesson the pain somewhat … a tall, spindly, and rather elderly man whose vanity prevented him from wearing the spectacles that would have lessoned his extreme near-sightedness.
Correcting Pluto’s classification as a Kuiper Belt Object does nothing to lesson Clyde Tombaugh’s discovery.
As a couple of the examples above indicate, repetitive use by the same author seems to indicate this being standard.
In at least some contexts, the idea of schooling whatever is lessoned into submission, thereby reducing its intensity, may work in some people’s minds to justify this.
*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 verbal use of “lesson” was more common a few hundred years ago. Today it is well-nigh extinct. I suspect that almost all the cases of “lesson” in place of “lessen” in recent decades are simple misspellings.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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I suspect you’re right.
‘Ten hours the first day,’ said the Mock Turtle: ‘nine the next, and so on.’
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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