Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
Original sense seems to be masking a voice or other audible signal by adding a constant (droning) sound that prevents hearing the quieter. The eggcorn uses a metaphor of submerging this voice in water until it dies…not a huge difference in sound, but a very different meaning.
I read it in Seth Godin’s “Tribes” recently.
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Most people would say that ‘drown out’ was the source and ‘drone out’ the putative eggcorn. The former is in dictionaries.
On the plain in Spain where it mainly rains.
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Absolutely wonderful new eggcorn, polyparadigm, though perhaps not in the direction you intended. There are hundreds of hits for “to drone out the”. Lots as well for “droned out by”, but in the latter form one would need be skeptical, it being indistinguishable from a typo. “Drone out” for “drown out” is a new classic.
I am thrilled whenever I discover that I have been using an eggcorn for years. See hone in on. I hope you are equally elated.
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David Bird wrote:
I am thrilled whenever I discover that I have been using an eggcorn for years. See hone in on.
Yeah, I too was confused about that one for years.
Welcome to the Eggcorn Forum, polyparadigm!
Last edited by Dixon Wragg (2018-02-10 19:40:04)
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