Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
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Initially pegging it as another malapropism, I may have found the balance point for this eggcorn. Feathering is not restricted to the covering on birds. It can also be the angle of presentation of an oar, paddle or propeller to the wind to reduce drag in boating and flying. Some “feather-capable” propellers can be adjusted parallel to the slipstream to increase glide. “Unfeathering” a propeller means restoring its ability to bite into the wind after an engine stall. “Unfeathered” access could then be, first, uninsulated, unimpeded or unprotected, or alternatively, access with some bite.
The Obama threat
The HORROR! How could we, as a country, allow the president this unfeathered access to our children without notifying the parents
(http://forums.the-dispatch.com/eve/foru … 6601077639)
Antivirus programs – who needs them
That one machine will allow a hacker unfeathered access to all your machines but who cares right?
(http://www.semiaccurate.com/forums/show … hp?p=11743)
Father’s rights
to protect the rights of Fathers to have: a) Visectomies without consent, b) unfeathered access to their children.
(http://mrigmaiden.blogspot.com/2005/12/ … s-for.html)
Mondegreen I couldn’t pass up
I was a free man in Paris.
I felt unfeathered and alive.
(http://sharizata.easyjournal.com/entry.aspx?eid=690119)
Incidentally, this one makes the round trip—fettered for feathered:
Mormon history
I love the irony of the tarred and fettered man pictured with the word, “nobly.â€
(http://mormonconversations.com/the-spirit-of-go/)
Last edited by David Bird (2009-11-21 19:19:38)
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If you were stokin’ the star maker machine and got too close to the furnace, you would be unfeathered and dead.
I like it as an eggcorn. But I’m not sure you have to invoke the (aero)nautical sense feathering to make it work. “Unfeathered” could convey a sense of unclothed, unencumbered by outer layers.
I see about ten hits for “tar and fetter.” Another good eggcorn in its own right.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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I find myself rather unconvinced by this one. I think the explanations resorted to here are a bit too clever. “Unfettered” isn’t the most common of words, but it’s probably far more familiar to most people than the specialist sense of “unfeathering,” etc.—which I’d never heard of. And thinking of “unfeathered” as “free, unfettered” also seems to me a fairly quirky leap.
(I don’t believe this point is all that relevant—since I don’t believe eggcorners think really hard about their substitutions—but someone who did think hard about “unfeathered” might come to the conclusion that removing a French sparrow’s feathers would definitely not make it a “free bird” in Paris; in fact, it’d be fettered by flightlessness.)
“Unfeathered” for “unfettered” looks like a common sound-approximation malaprop to me.
Last edited by patschwieterman (2009-11-22 13:18:26)
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I can make some sense out of “unfeathered access” as an eggcorn …
If a bird is unfeathered, it is basically bare and unprotected. So, if someone is allowed “unfeathered access” to something, it would mean that it does not have adequate protection from a dangerous intruder.
About 25 examples on the net.
Examples:
BusinessWeekThey barely spoke any English, yet had unfeathered access to secret research done for the US governemnt….. Link to this comment. JK Nov 24, 2008 7:08 PM GMT I …
app.businessweek.com/UserComments/combo_review?
MacDailyNews – RUMOR: Mac OS X 10.4 ‘Tiger’ may cost more than …As soon as Panther came out, the underground community went to work and has been enjoying unfeathered access to our computers ever since. I know this because I was introduced to …
macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/3235/P51 · Cached page
Last edited by jorkel (2009-11-25 16:02:12)
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I’m feeling like the Grinch today, doing nothing but posting skepticism. But I remain unconvinced by even Jorkel’s suggestion for this one. First, this is still a bit awkward—“unfeathered” feels to me like it should apply to the person doing the accessing, and not the person being victimized; and I’d be more comfortable with it if I could think of examples of feathers being used idiomatically as a symbol of protection. And beyond that, the explanation still feels too clever. I think that once a reshaping requires a mighty metaphorical leap on the part of the eggcorner, that sense of a semantic gulf will often make the person think, “Huh, that can’t really be right, can it?” —and then they end up not committing the eggcorn. When we eggcornistas have to work this hard and get this clever to justify the eggcornicity of a reshaping, I think that’s often a sign it’s probably not an eggcorn.
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Dear Mr. Grinch:
Hearing and seeing phrases of the form “X is unfettered by Y,” a person who didn’t know the word “unfettered” might (correctly) assume from the contexts of the phrase that unfettering referred to removing hindrances and that fettering, therefore, meant hindering.
So is there a sense of “feathering” that has a meaning that might reasonably map onto “hindering?” Consider this substitution of “unfeathered” for “unfetter:”
Discussing the character of persons with a certain name: “They are conventionally beautiful but enjoy a tom-boyish lifestyle, unfeathered by tons of make-up, fashion trends and gossip.”
The social mores that trap women in typically feminine roles, the person seems to be saying, amount to feathering, to adding layers of gaudy but non-essential coverings. This kind of feathering is a hindrance to a woman whose goals are not gender-driven.
In the same vein, certain other excesses can seem like hindrances because they are unnecessary ornamentations, surplus featherings. On this web page, power and wealth are viewed as excesses to the innocent soul:
An open letter from a Phillippino prisoner: “But beyond and above all this is the one law that is of divine origin, one that comes from the innocence of a pure of heart, unfeathered by power and wealth.”
Finally, over-the-top ornamentation of web pages, especially with despised popups, are seen as hindering users of the pages:
Page navigation instructions: “you can move the entire window anywhere on the page you want…or…continued [sic] on unfeathered by pop-ups. (at least from these pages)”
Love, Cindy-Lou.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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Kem, I’m saying that “feathered” is a malaprop for “fettered” and can substitute for the latter wherever it occurs. Yes, some people do think of adornment as a kind of fettering—I got about a dozen hits for variations of “unfettered by makeup/cosmetics.” But I don’t see how that point helps your argument; since people already are using ”(un-)fettered” in these contexts, your examples look like instances of a predictable malapropic substitution.
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I’m not sure about the general “fettered/feathered” switch. You may be right: in the absence of idiomatic embedding, it is probably a pail, not a flounder. But I’m persuaded that the “fettered->feathered” switch in the idiomatic context of “is un{feathered|fettered} by {some excess}” is semantically motivated.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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