Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
You are not logged in.
Registrations are currently closed because of a technical problem. Please send email to
The forum administrator reserves the right to request users to plausibly demonstrate that they are real people with an interest in the topic of eggcorns. Otherwise they may be removed with no further justification. Likewise, accounts that have not been used for posting may be removed.
Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
Using ‘pretense’ (google – 29,800) or even
‘pretence’ (19200) rather than pretext (242,000) seems fairly widespread…
But, and here’s my question, since ‘pretext’ seems (to me) to have a more specific meaning – not just giving a false reason, but doing so to conceal the true one, is this just a bunch of synonyms or what?
Offline
I encountered the same issue that you are facing. (See my post entitled “Words with similar sound and meaning” (or something like that).
Some of the word pairs that I inquired about were:
An incisive remark
An insightful remark
Expound on a topic
Expand on a topic
Is weary of
Is wary of
Speak eloquently
Speak elegantly
I think these word pairs are probably not eggcorns because they don’t involve a new type of imagery for the mistakenly-used word. The usage might fall into the category of a malapropism.
Offline