Eggcorn Forum

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Fox News Weather has had a screed up on its page for several days, with the following headline:

‘They were denying us right away’: Florida residents face uncertain future in Ian’s aftermath

It is pretty clearly a puff piece, playing off readers’ sympathies to gain clicks, suggesting that insurance companies, like hurricanes, are heartless, and somebody ought to be doing more to help the victims.
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Following the headline, the article reads:

Mike Mauger lost his home in the hurricane and doesn’t know where to go from here. ¶ “Hopefully, we have insurance, some form of insurance. According to the insurance people, they were denying us right away,” he shrugged. “I don’t know how that works. I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

The article’s last sentence reads:

Ian was indeed an unbiased and catastrophic storm, washing ashore feelings of anxiety, stress and
worry about what the next steps will be for the millions of survivors in its wake.

Beware unbiased storms that wash ashore feelings of anxiety, stress and worry rather than water and flotsam. As long as they leave millions of survivors in their wakes. (I think I’ve committed that despicable act myself, a time or two …)
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It’s not clear what the insurance people actually said, but my guess is that they said that “right of way” had been denied (the street was badly damaged), and Mr. Mauger misheard and (thus) misinterpreted it eggcornically as “right away”, making it sound like an immediate blanket denial of benefits. I’m guessing the author of the article left what Mauger said as was, and amplified it by putting it in the headline, because clarifying it would lower the emotional impact. Possibly the author was, and subsequent editors were, under the same misapprehension as to what the insurance people might have meant.

Last edited by DavidTuggy (2022-10-14 09:28:47)