Eggcorn Forum

The verbs lessen and lesson may be substituted for each other. This may bring to mind the Gryphon’s explanation regarding the Mock Turtle’s educational experiences at the hands of the old Tortoise (who, as you may remember, Tort us Reeling and Writhing and the four branches of Arithmetic — Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision, not to mention Mystery, ancient and modern, and Seaography, along with Drawling, Stretching, and Fainting in Coils.) Classes were held

“Ten hours the first day,” said the Mock Turtle : “nine the next, and so on.” ¶ “ What a curious plan !” exclaimed Alice. ¶ “That ’s the reason they ’re called lessons,” the Gryphon remarked : “because they lessen from day to day.”

I give several examples of lessen for lesson though they seem to me more likely pedestrian misspellings than anything else. I suppose that condensing a complex subject into a relatively simple lesson might be seen as lessening it, but I’m not particularly convinced that such an explanation is at all probably right for anybody. In my examples it is the noun lessen in any case.

This little speech is recalled at the end, and the lessen seems (again I say “seems” because I’m not sure the filmmakers really knew what they wanted to say) to be that we should make peace with the fact that there is war and conflict in the world

that wisdom, sovereignty, and even goodness which guided it. Learn the lessen inculcated in that majestic language, Ps. xlvi.

The classes are full of all different cultures so it it is all different lessens within lessens in the class.

The other case, lesson < lessen , somewhat similarly, might involve “schooling” the subject, disciplining it to fit into a smaller space or otherwise be reduced.

It is because of this that I hold myself back, hoping to somehow lesson the blow that I know I will receive

It occurs to me that such an event will lesson the tensions

She attempted to lesson her nervousness by teasing … 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.

(The repeated occurrence of the spelling suggests that it is standard for the author.)

Correcting Pluto’s classification as a Kuiper Belt Object does nothing to lesson Clyde Tombaugh’s discovery.

Word would have a way of getting around and lessoning the gravity

A similar construal may perhaps be active in verses < versus
.
Intransitive usages are less susceptible to such an understanding, I think.

Her introspection lessoned as she focused on her sister’s future

Thomas hoped rather than believed that the attachment might lesson upon further acquaintance.

“Afternoon and evening storms are expected to continue over Central Florida for the next several days, though coverage and duration will lesson daily moving into the weekend,” forecasters wrote in an outlook issued Thursday.

Last edited by DavidTuggy (2022-05-23 19:20:27)