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Chris -- 2018-04-11
Here’s a forum post I spotted:
[quote]
It was a couple of days ago now but if anyone saw T2 on TV the other day you’ll know what I’m talking about: cut a movie that is more than 2 hours long to fit into a 2 hour time slot and then pack in ads every 5 minutes!!! Geez, they cut the movie to threads! If you were watching for the first time it wouldn’t have surprised me if it lost you in places. That’s how merciless the cutting was…
[/quote]
http://www.letsjapan.org/forum/viewtopi … start=1590
Searching google for “cut to threads” as a phrase produces perhaps 4 matches. 3 are film reviews and one is a BBC interview with someone remembering German bombing raids in WW2. Something like “Our bedclothes were cut to threads”.
Last edited by langserve (2009-06-17 01:43:54)
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Welcome to the forum, langserve. This is an interesting find—I found examples of “torn to threads,” as well.
One of the criteria regulars on the forum use for judging whether a reshaping is an eggcorn is “the change of imagery” test—the new word/phrase needs to use imagery that’s significiantly different from that employed in the original. And often that can end up being a bit subjective. Personally, when I hear the phrase “cut to shreds,” I most typically imagine fabric as the thing being shredded (though I realize that that isn’t the only mental picture the phrase might evoke). “Cut to threads” is pretty similar, but seems to imagine the same process a little further down the line. The fact that a similar metaphor is being used in both the original and the reshaping makes this interesting, but for me it also means that this isn’t a really strong eggcorn.
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