Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
A word like “nil” ought to be as absolute a negative as you could normally imagine, but it seems some cannot imagine one that is all that absolute. (I have this recorded starting in 2005.)
Chances of him returning are extremely nil.
[samples] that were not from a farmed plantation, most often well away from highly populated areas, making it an extremely nil risk of being chemically treated.
Don’t bother suggesting anyone else because they’re irrelevant and their chances are extremely nil.
Helen, I’ve calculated that the chances of that happening are extremely nil. The air force only makes exceptions for married couples and siblings.
I suppose the way is paved by somewhat redundant (though perhaps wisely so) suggestions that something might not be absolutely nil (as opposed to nil not being absolute):
I’ve read that, on the moon, where resistance of the atmosphere is negligible, if not absolutely nil, two objects of unlike densities will be pulled …
As far as I can tell, here in the UK, it is virtually if not absolutely, nil.
success in the nature of things must be halting and spasmodic, if not absolutely nil; and it must incur the criticism and raillery of the wise and the well-to-do.
Somewhat relevant: Ken (Lakritz)’s nil and void (with variations), and Peter (Forster)’s null envoyed (with the variant null on void which still strikes me as being like black on dark .)
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2022-06-30 16:20:46)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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Near-nil? How about nillish?
By the time we reached the summit area, it was starting to snow, so the views were kinda nillish.
... start with the philosophical problem of whether this DateRange is possibly not actually a real DateRange but something nillish.
I’ve just found that nil and nill have different meanings and roots, but the latter survives only in willy-nilly.
I’ll try the save-as-pose-and-insert-willish-nillish thing though
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