Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2025-05-10
Produced by a student I work with. Eggcorn?
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What was the age of your source? The reason I ask: the widely-marked group of Flingshot® toys. It is possible that the speaker was referring to the toys and not to the old-fashioned slingshot (what our British cousins sometimes call a “catapult”).
Or the speaker may have inadvertently substituted a better-known trade name for a lesser-known generic name. Inadvertent eggcorns that have their source in advertent errors (see Arnold Zwicky’s post on the role of advertent errors in various classes of mock eggcorns at http://arnoldzwicky.wordpress.com/2009/ … their-kin/ ) are pollutions of the eggcorn waters.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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Interesting! I haven’t heard of the toys. The source is 11 years old – would that put him in an age range likely to know and/or use trade name Flingshot toys? Thanks for the post link as well.
Last edited by anaphoricreference (2009-10-24 12:29:48)
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He may have heard of the Flingshot when he was growing up. Don’t know. The only toys I know well are the ones that occupy 60-year-old boys.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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