Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2025-05-10
Reading an ad for a free “tortes shell” cat (http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/nva/ … 58274.html), I thought tortes shell might be an eggcorn. A quick google search reveals many of the same kind of usage for tortoiseshell cats and hair accessories. First, a torte is a cake. That may or may not be intentional. But when logically thinking about what tortoiseshell is, probably people mentally don’t think of it as tortoise as in turtle, because what sense does that make? Thus a pastry (torte) is a more likely description of a tortie cat than a turtle.
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