Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
A correspondent writes:
[Person’s sister] was talking about a couple that was having trouble getting pregnant, and was consider invertro fetalization.
A lovely spoonerism, iconic to the presumable meaning of invertro. (Did they get pregnant by making love standing on their heads?). Not standard for the speaker, but if it were …
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“fetalization†does seem to occur in other cases as a substitute for fertilization, and maybe some of them are eggcorns? A human fertilization, at least, has as its natural eventual product a fetus. But a number of clear examples look more likely to be spelling errors rather than semantic restructurings, e.g. when they occur next to a (more) correct spelling.
Does fetalization take place in the oviduct? Where does fertilisation take place in human?
What if a lesbian couple uses in vitro fetalization to have a “bilogical†child? [quotes original. I don’t think it was to point out the absurdity, though—wouldn’t the child of lesbians be more likely to be monological?]
The source for these cells is left over fertalized ovum from in vitro fetalization clinics. There are only two options for these tissue samples:
(Most hits on “fetalization†are, naturally enough, usages where it means “neoteny, retention of fetal characteristics in the adult formâ€.)
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2009-06-02 10:00:36)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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I found one more example of the substitution of “fetalisation” for “fertilisation” by using the UK spelling. I wish it were more frequent-it would make a lovely eggcorn.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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There are a good many other examples out there. It’s hard to get any kind of number because of the difficulty of singling them out electronically.
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Another issue is the possibility of independent formation, i.e. of a person knowing the word fertilization (or – isation ) but thinking of fetalization as an separate legitimate word. I hadn’t known the word fetation, but it is defined as “The formation of a fetus in the womb; pregnancy.†Reasonable enough.
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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