Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
Graft and graph grew out of the same etymological roots, and are closely related to the familiar words stylus, and style. An O.Fr. grafe was a joining of a plant shoot (which was a stylus, or stick) to another plant, deriving from L. graphium, for stylus. The grafting of the t onto graph to make graft is apparently unexplained.
How might this shift to skin graph have come about? Is it too much to imagine that users would visualize a skin graph as a mathematical mapping from one part of the body to another, the conceptual basis for any X-Y function? If not, then could a graph, in the mind, be simply a square or a rectangle? A kind of movable canvas? Body painting with skin?
Veterinary surgery:
Adam continues to do well. He has another skin graph surgery on Tuesday, 7/23/07. This surgery is an actual skin graph which means they will take skin from one area of his body and place it in another. (The previous operations have been “stretching” skin over burned areas.)
(http://www.forgottenfelines.com/v4/adam0721-0841.shtml)
The graphic details of following example almost made me wonder whether there is an official medical procedure known as a skin graph. The detail of the “grid design” (also visible in the gruesome accompanying pictures) makes it seem like mathematical topology.
Graphic account of motorcycle accident (this site is not for the squeamish):
The next 2 photos were taken after the skin graph was done. If you look close you can see the grid design of the skin graph on the muscles. [...] On the right medial side of the thigh you can see where the skin was taken to use for the graphing.
(http://anatowiki.wetpaint.com/page/Motorcycle+accident)
In the next example, the implication is that the site of removal is what is “graphted” (scraped?).
The handy foreskin:
That tiny or large piece of skin is the best skin for burn injury, eye lid, scrotal or other types of procedures where a skin graph may be required. If you have ever needed a skin graph, the graphted area can be more painful than the injury.
(http://www.hisandherhealth.com/cgi-bin/ … 000428;p=0)
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In spite of a common etymology, the substitution of “graph” for “graft” seems to function as a pretty legitimate eggcorn …and I’m basing that on peoples’ widespread familiarity with the former; Many people envision a bounded 2-dimensional region when they think about a graph. It is a bit amusing to think that ordinary individuals might envision the mapping of this graph from one region to another region the same way a mathematician might envision the mapping concept, but many eggcorn utterers can still be highly educated (even if they don’t know the word “graft”).
It is also noteworthy that “graft” and “graphed” are homophones
Last edited by jorkel (2009-07-28 16:36:26)
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