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Chris -- 2018-04-11

#1 2009-07-12 03:58:41

Dixon Wragg
Eggcornista
From: Cotati, California
Registered: 2008-07-04
Posts: 1375

Strange substitutions

Another memo I’ve encountered in the office where I work yields this:

“These addresses where listen in the wrong Block…”

From my knowledge of the work described in the memo, I know that what the writer means is “These addresses were listed…”!

This error seems really bizarre to me. Though the word “were” looks and sounds a bit like “where” and, similarly, “listed” looks and sounds a bit like “listen”, there’s no meaning connection whatsoever between “were listed” and”where listen”, and the parts of speech are totally different too. One such substitution would be strange enough, but two consecutive words? What kind of mental process could possibly result in this particular type of error? Has anyone here encountered this type of error before?

Puzzledly;

Dixon

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#2 2009-07-12 16:05:24

patschwieterman
Administrator
From: California
Registered: 2005-10-25
Posts: 1680

Re: Strange substitutions

Hey, Dixon – welcome back. You’re posting really interesting slips; I’d like to thank both you and the Census Bureau.

I’d never seen “listened” for “listed” before, but it’s out there, as my examples below show. This could be just a WTF typo, where people type a similar but different word that has no semantic relation to their target word. This seems particularly likely in my second citation – the writer is thinking about music, so “listened” might have provided a bit of interference there.

But maybe this is standard for some speakers. That seems less likely to me, but maybe they’re thinking of the patterns in take/taken and using two perfect participial endings for good measure.

When a user want to create a new email and send it to one person from the
organisation, no entry is listened in the global adressbook.
http://forum.soft32.com/mac/Contacts-gl … 72495.html

It is listened in the Hom-Mega catalog not as trance but as trance/electronica. This album is a departure from their first two albums and closer in spirit to Converting Vegetarians, their last album.
http://www.amazon.com/IM-Supervisor-1-B … B1BOGG5N1U

His address is listened in that article.
http://chicagoist.com/2008/08/19/aurora … ing_do.php

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