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#1 2017-09-19 01:54:08

JemButters
Member
From: United Kingdom
Registered: 2015-12-20
Posts: 10
Website

impeding disaster

I came across this is in a tweet from EU Watch, repeating a headline from an EU Commission – no less – headline: https://medium.com/@EuropeanCommission/ … 032a55fa72
A quick Google search throws up a thousand or more hits for ‘impeding disaster.’

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#2 2017-09-19 02:02:43

Dixon Wragg
Eggcornista
From: Cotati, California
Registered: 2008-07-04
Posts: 1375

Re: impeding disaster

This one is very likely a simple typo in most cases, especially given the pronunciation difference between “impending” and “impeding”, but I can see how it could be an eggcorn in some cases.

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#3 2017-09-20 09:56:04

Peter Forster
Eggcornista
From: UK
Registered: 2006-09-06
Posts: 1222

Re: impeding disaster

Not such a great pronunciation difference here, and a description of what will take place too. Being upended would seem to spare us much greater indignities and damage.

...but such animals did not carry bag and baggage until slain in an upending disaster but behind it all the almighty God had a plan.

The weary man breaks, his eyes turning blank as he awaits his upending doom, his punishment.

... their life as well as the idea that an additional unique body can assist them prophesy their future or alert them of upending doom or disaster.

It were the last days of planet earth unaware of their upending doom the people went on with their lives reading books and watching movies about the end of the ..

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#4 2017-09-21 20:27:09

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2714
Website

Re: impeding disaster

I like upending (disaster) very much, though (like Dixon with impeding ) I have some doubts about its eggcornicity, given the pronunciation differences. I can see myself or somebody else inventing it and using it, and maybe the sound of impending would be close enough to motivate me somewhat, but I’m less sure I would actually be mistaking one for the other. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit, though, if some perps were actually mistaking them for each other, and to the extent that such mistaking is motivated by thinking the meaning of the actually pronounced form fits the situation, it’s an eggcorn.
.
fwiw you get “impeding” often enough with neutral or even positive events, where it makes less sense, to give credence to the theory that it is mostly an omission typo leading to a more neutral malapropism. E.g.

the married couple could not but be overjoyed by the impeding union of their sister and close friend.

the impeding birth of your first child

he wrote a note to his father, to whom he communicated both his sister’s improvement and their consequent impeding return in the appointed two days time.

she warned of an impeding call by a gentleman

Texas nationalists keeping close tabs on impeding ‘Brexit’ vote

In ancient times, stars were assumed to predict impeding events including bad events.

After their first encounter many followed and paved the way for their impeding marriage.

Last edited by DavidTuggy (2017-09-21 20:32:06)


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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#5 2017-09-25 13:38:22

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2714
Website

Re: impeding disaster

Possibly the idea of the anticipated event intervening between the present state of affairs and the forseeable future might be involved, even in the cases where the “impeding” event is a positive one. The future can’t rightly come about till this happens. ??


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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