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Chris -- 2025-05-10
in the debate over Christmas/Holiday trees, one correspondent wrote:
This should be passed around before we lose all our rites and privileges to those who think that they are the only believers
It still fits and makes some sense, but it’s a new meaning for the phrase.
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Our database has an entry for the reverse substitution, “rite->right,” as in “right of passage.” ( http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/english/3/right/ ).
Several years ago Ken discussed one “right->rite” idiom: “rite of way” ( http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/forum/viewtopic.php?id=289 ).
There are many web pages with misspellings of “right” as “rite.” I used the phrases “human rites,” “rites and privileges,” “the rite to,” and “inalienable rites” to find them. Are they more than misspellings? Under certain circumstances a rite can be a right, of course, but in general I find the meanings of “right” and “rite” a little too divergent to suggest that the semantic overlap of the two words might be motivating the substitutions. Probably this has to be considered on an idiom-by-idiom basis, though.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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