Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
My best friend charmingly refers to “happenchance” rather than “happenstance,” which I feel is a very intuitive slip of the tongue.
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“Happenchance” probably was a slip of the tongue once. But both the OED and the AHD list it: the latter gives it its own entry without further comment; the former calls “happenchance” an altered form of “happenstance.” The OED article also makes it clear that the first citation for “happenchance” (1911) comes only 14 years after the first citation for ‘happenstance” (1897). They’ve been fellow travelers for a long time, and they’re both apparently considered standard these days.
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