Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
In my daughter’s latest video she was answering questions people had written in about, such as how to distinguish the pronunciations of can and can’t in American English (it’s not at all easy for Spanish speakers), or how you say “the thing-um-a-jig on top of the whatchamacallit†(which one commenter insightfully called “lengua de ferreterÃa†= “hardware-store speechâ€. Apparently a number of hardware stores in Chile have signs saying, in loose translation, “Sorry, we don’t have the little doohickey that goes on the whatsit.â€)
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At the end (minute 19.54) Holly says Me encanta ayudarles a resolver estas pequeñas dudas que les surgen = “I really enjoy helping you all deal with these little puzzling issues that come up [to you].â€
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A commenter handled Fuego09Esmeralda commented ‘19:54. “Estas
pequeñas dudas que les surgen†o “estas pequeñas dudas que les urgen…†¡O ambas…! I.e. “These little puzzles that come up [to you]†or “these little puzzles that you urgently need to resolve…†Or both …’
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Very eggcorn-like in that the sound admits either parsing and both make good sense in the context. One person might well hear one and another person hear the other, and both are in some sense perfectly correct. A few fortunate people, like Fuego09Esmeralda, get to enjoy both and the interplay between them.
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2020-09-13 01:28:28)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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A sort of Spanish version of the n-adder problem from the English article “an.”
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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Yes, on the phonological side of things. But an adder and a nadder have exactly the same meaning and morphological structure; both are indefinite.article + poisonous.snake. This case has two different verbs involved: surgen ‘they arise, come up’ and urgen ‘they are urgent’. Surge and urge, so to speak.
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There is actually the possiblity of the same sound being heard as a third combination: le surgen ‘they come up to him/her/it (3rd.pers.sg)’. The forms with les mark a 3rd.pers.pl object. But 2nd.pers.pl is also les , and similarly 2nd.pers.sg.polite is le , because these second person forms, ustedes and usted , developed from vuestra(s) merced(es) ‘your Mercy(s)’. Much like the English your Grace(s) or your Honor(s) one uses third person forms for these (e.g. you say your Grace is or your Honor knows rather than your Grace are/art or your Honor know(est) .)
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In this particular case the context ensures that a 2nd.pers.pl object is understood: Holly was not talking to an individual or about a single third person or a group of them. But the surgen/urgen ambiguity remains.
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2020-09-10 04:38:01)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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