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Chris -- 2018-04-11
There’s a coffee franchise here in Canada that has become something of an institution. It’s named for a hockey star, Tim Horton. They sell sugary doughnut holes by the box; they’re called Timbits. My daughter told me that one of her friends had talked guilelessly about “timbits of information.” Unfortunately this one is very probably culture-specific – I must tell you that I found it hilariously Canadian.
baseball in the Maritimes
This book by Howell was filled with many interesting facts and timbits of information.
(http://www.amazon.ca/Northern-Sandlots- … 0802069428)
Alberta student festival
And a little more timbits of information will be rolling out
(http://www.bellerosecon.com/)
Hockey player in the Windsor Star newspaper
I went down there, began working with some of the young guys, feeding them little Timbits of information which they gobbled up and started to see some light.
(http://blog.mlive.com/snapshots/2009/01 … .html#more)
Another Canadian earwitness
This woman often imparts timbits of information, and she’s NOT joking or making a pun.
(http://forums.comicbookresources.com/sh … p=10211981)
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Yes, a truly funny switch.
“Timbit” for “tidbit” may not be all that narrowly Canadian. Tim Horton has coffee shops in about ten U.S. states. There are a dozen Timmy’s in NYC. You can buy TH coffee and doughnuts at about 50 UK locations.
You have no idea how important Tim Hortons is in Canada unless you have lived here. Canada has, for example, twice as many Tim Horton outlet’s as Macdonald outlets (gasp!). I read once that Canada has ten times as many doughnut shops per capita as the U.S. Helps us get through the long winter nights.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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So is it an Annie or not?
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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I don’t think this is an Annie Lehman because, although a proper name does figure in Timbits, the meaning of the collocation (I’m slowly picking up the lingo (I kid myself)) “timbits of information” are the same as tidbits – small, individually insignificant pieces of dough data. What’s funny and interesting to me is that someone would be so immersed in “Timmy’s” culture that a timbit would be more familiar to them than a tidbit. It’s no longer a brand name. Here they are in all their deep-fried glory (link).
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Plus the direction of the switch is wrong. In an Annie Lehmann the proper name is the acorn, not the eggcorn.
It is possible that the brand name, Timbits, was coined as a word play on tidbits. So the eggcorners may simply be failing to note the word play.
Last edited by kem (2015-11-13 10:38:32)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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But petty Annie details are, in Lehmann’s terms, also cases in which the overall collocation means the same: pickyunish details and terms that are easier to understand than other formulations.
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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DavidTuggy wrote:
But petty Annie details are, in Lehmann’s terms, also cases in which the overall collocation means the same: pickyunish details and terms that are easier to understand than other formulations.
Love it. Mindbender.
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