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Chris -- 2025-05-10
“Ham-fistededness†means something like “a negligent or malicious lack of subtlety.†The reshaping “harm-fisted†may seem to privilege the malice over the unsubtlety, but it still more or less works in context since ham-fistedness is so often thought to be harmful by people who employ the word (though my first citation may be an exception to that rule). This is very rare – I’ve provided all the instances that seemed to me clearly relevant:
When their intoxicatingly insightful lyrics blended correctly with their often intentionally harm-fisted playing, it was a musical catharsis—a true rock and roll nirvana.
http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:R8 … =firefox-a
The sectarian purge of the military under Sani Abacha was only crude, harm-fisted acceleration of a process that has been stridently decried in the media of this nation.
http://www.nigerianmuse.com/opessays/?u … r_1998.htm
Evan’s right of course regarding the deeper issues: the IDF is no longer (if it ever was) a functioning invasion force, capable of even remotely dealing with an in-built militia that is fueled almost entirely by the IDF’s own harm-fisted inhuman blundering.
http://alertandalarmed.blogspot.com/200 … ation.html
The government’s polices on asylum are harm – fisted.
http://www.politics.co.uk/news/policing … 228151.htm
Another reshaping of “ham-fisted†(“hand-fistedâ€) is already in the Database: http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/forum/viewtopic.php?id=6
The Language Log post linked to there is also worth reading.
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Nice!
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An interesting factor here is the graphical shape and visual appearance of the letters: an “r†next to, and especially before an “n†or an “m†in a number of fonts and writing styles looks like another stroke on a letter. “rn†looks very much like “mâ€, and “ɾm†looks very much like “nnâ€. This is not a straightforward case, as “rm†has an extra stroke beyond the standard “mâ€, but it can easily prompt an error of visual memory where you forget just how many strokes in a row you were dealing with. I know I have run across other, similar cases.
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Not likely a very major factor, but still at least a potential factor, I think.
*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 really like this one. Perhaps fewer people these days encounter a whole ham, or even manual workers with huge red hands, and opt for this entirely plausible alternative. The earlier ‘hand-fisted’, for me at least, seems quite weak by comparison. There are a number of the ‘harm-handed’ variants out there too.
David’s observation is one I can readily identify with; perhaps it’s my deteriorating eyesight, but I frequently confuse burn and bum for example and right now my nose is nearly touching the screen to ensure I haven’t typed the same word twice.
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