Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
What a great site. I’ve been observing eggcorns in the wild for many years, and I’m pleased to find them corralled into these pages.
How about these:
Years ago, I had a student write that she became so nervous (at a marching band concert, no less!) that she almost “lost her composer.” A Google search on the term turns up a few instances, though it may be too infrequent to truly qualify for the database.
What about “trying to make amens?” I’ve heard it used fairly often, and Google turns up loads of instances.
Finally—and this may not qualify at all, but I thought this group would surely appreciate it—I had another student describe the problem in her workplace as “to many chiefs, not enough Indians.” I think that’s probably every manager’s problem, don’t you?
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What’s wrong with “too many chiefs, not enough Indians”? Isn’t that the way that phrase is normally expressed?
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Jim Dixon wrote:
What’s wrong with “too many chiefs, not enough Indians”? Isn’t that the way that phrase is normally expressed?
Yes, it is … but read my post again.
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OK, I think I get it now. You were commenting on the spelling “to†for “too.†Mistakes like that (and much worse) are so commonplace at the web site I normally frequent, that I habitually ignore them.
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Jim Dixon wrote:
OK, I think I get it now. You were commenting on the spelling “to†for “too.†Mistakes like that (and much worse) are so commonplace at the web site I normally frequent, that I habitually ignore them.
Actually, it’s not a comment on the spelling, mistaken though it may be. It’s just that using “to” instead of “too” gives the phrase a completely different meaning. “Too many chiefs, not enough Indians” describes a top-heavy organization. “To many chiefs, not enough Indians” suggests that from the perspective of many chiefs, the opposite is true.
Does that make any more sense?
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