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Chris -- 2018-04-11
There are a few transformations that we see repeatedly, and that are reliable sources of interesting eggcorns: the loss of r, that makes both calmer and “karma” sound like homophones of “comma”; those dialects in which short i and long e are indistinguishable, leading to switches like feel his shoes and having a filled day ; the similarity between long a and short e, aiding in the birth of the eggcorn ; then, indistinguishable short e and i, as in following several car links behind. The latter i for an e might have aided in the production of “tying up loose ins”. “Loose ins” might be “ins and outs” that you just haven’t learned (see also the ends and outs).
Building a backyard swing You’re all gang hoe and you get out and start working on the project and maybe finish up the loose ins on Sunday now or outside obviously.
Blackjack tips THIS BOOK HAS HELPED ME TIE TOGETHER ALL THE LOOSE INS AND IN MY FIRST 8 TRIPS USING THIS METHOD I HAVE WON 8 TIMES.
PS2 gamers I hated how the storyline had a lot of loose ins when 2 came out.
Star Wars thread to me just bad Story job on GL’s part, tie up all loose in’s George, all loose ins.
According to Dixon, “ends” for “ins” has been discussed previously here, but I couldn’t find that post.
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I’m a prenasal raiser myself, and “ends” and “ins” are exact homophones for me. But the logic of this one eludes me. I guess the fact that we have the idiom “ins and outs” helps makes the nominalization of “ins” feel more natural, but what are these speakers envisisioning when they say “loose ins”?
As a side note, Dixon catalogued “ends and outs” late last year.
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I kind of hoped I’d get away with that one. I don’t really know exactly what they’re thinking here either. There are two idiomatic expressions based on loose ends: tie up loose ends as above, and at loose ends. At loose ins is not to be found, thankfully, since that one would be even harder to justify. So what are “loose ends”? An end can be a goal, an objective, a cricket wicket, a portion of a curling game, a remnant, fragment, a warp thread in weaving, the part of a rope beyond a knot that is not used. The last is most likely what is to be tied up. In three of the examples above, “loose ins” are unexplained parts of a storyline. The only suggestion I have is that a loose in would be a story element that was introduced, but not properly resolved. If no one buys that, we’d better throw it on the malaprop heap.
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Malaprop, I think. “Malaprop heap” is a bit strong—some malaprops are choice.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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