Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
The more I think about it the more I think this probably is an eggcorn for some.
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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You’re thinking that “metted out punishment” is being understood as the past tense of meet?
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I’m thinking that there is some eggcornish stuff going on in there. Met is one of the inflected forms of meet (past tense or past participle), and those using that pronunciation for mete probably activate that connection in their minds. In any case, those that pronounce it like meet or meat probably have a connection to meet (less likely to meat as far as I can see) activated instead of a notion of measuring; that would be the essence of an eggcorn.
I should have referenced one paragraph in particular from the other post:
Eggcorning possibilities? I think there are some. What is meted out presumably meets (and has met) a proper standard, and thus it is meet that it be imposed.
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2018-03-20 09:38:40)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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I could see “mete” turning eggcornishly into “meet” in phrases such as “meet out punishment.” (here and many other places). The speaker bends a meaning of “meet,” such as the meaning “encounter,” in the direction of “encountering for the purpose of sharing/exchange,” “Meeting out” punishment/justice is then sharing it.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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