Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
I ran across this one in a comment on an MSN article that was particularly abusive to the English language:
Out with the old ok quit robbing people to pay Paul’ The corporation red Giant! Make things simple when you try to fix something that is broken try just replacing the part when you use super glue it lasts for a while but then the problem is worse.
Threw ground roads and let the threw part catch water and deliver it wherever it needs to go pUT PEOPLE BACK TO WORK REMEMBER THE RAILROAD CITIES POP-ED UP AND STAYED UP BECAUSE THEY NEEDED A PLACE TO STAY WHILE THEY WHERE working! qUIT LOOKING AT THE POOR AS SMALL OR ONE DAY A BIG GOD IS GOING TO STEP ON YOU ok!
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I actually had to read that a few times to ensure that it was not a Markov chain spambot. However I did find it attested in one other place on the Internet, in a more lucid post presumably by a different person:
Life after Opdahl is simply GREAT! Finally we are able to say NO when accounts have no funds to purchase anymore furniture and goodies rather then seeing Opdahl “ robbing people to pay Paul â€. Finally we are seeing things being run like a business, with the policies & procedures being followed, instead of Opdahl doing whatever suited his fancy. And finally we are simply seeing people not asking for things the way they did in the past, lacking justification and funds, because they know that Opdahl is no longer around to merely rubber stamp their requests. On behalf of the many dedicated BOE employees who truly care, honestly believe that the kids do come first and love & are proud of our Town called NORWALK….thank you, thank you, thank you for getting rid of that bastard Opdahl.
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With the first one I can’t really figure out what the author was trying to say, but the second one is interesting because it additionally alleges misuse of public funds. Not only does it fit the classic definition of “robbing Peter to pay Paul” but it also carries the implication that the public (the people) is being defrauded (robbed) in the process.
This one is probably fairly uncommon since “Peter” is not exactly an archaic word. But I’m actually surprised that it isn’t a bit more common since most users of this phrase are probably unaware of what “Peter” and “Paul” refer to in this allusion.
Last edited by tyler (2010-01-20 17:41:40)
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Nice! Another entry where a proper name alternates with something else—Auntie Lehmanns or whatever we decide to call them.
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Reminds me of another (non-eggcornical) per-version that describes a situation that happens too often:
paying Paul to rob Peter
Welcome to the forum, Tyler.
*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 love this one. Have we really decided not to call these eggcorns?
This one might even be classified as a Mondegreen.
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No, kem and some others have their doubts about the other direction (x > proper name = [(Annie) Lehmann]), on the grounds that proper names don’t have meaning in the same way that common nouns do and the restructuring that produces an eggcorn must be meaningful. But I don’t think anybody has suggested that proper name > x [anti-Lehmann] doesn’t count. I think they both can count.
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And yes, it can well be mondegrenous, as can many if not most eggcorns, depending on definitions.
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2010-01-20 20:46:52)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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The difference that I see between an eggcorn and a Mondegreen is that the latter is a reshaping based on the misinterpretation of a singular cultural construction—such as a song lyric, a scripture line, etc. These constructions aren’t idiomatic or in-the-language, but they are recognizable in relation to a single source that is widely known.
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That’s a possible definition.
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Grammatical constructions, clichés, words like acorn , and so forth are “_cultural_ constructions†as well, fwtw, and some of them are probably “singular†(depending on how that gets defined). I for one would certainly want to claim that the kinds of things (song lyrics, lines of scripture) you cite are in the language as well, but that of course depends on how you define “in the languageâ€.
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Anyhow, it all depends on your definitions.
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2010-01-21 17:25:49)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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No, I didn’t mean cultural that broadly. But you may extrapolate from the operational examples I gave, and maybe we can agree on where to draw the line.
As for singular, I mean “single source” ... if that helps any. Consider a recorded song lyric: every time it is replayed, you have the same representation of it. So, one’s mishearing of a particular recording of a song is a Mondegreen: one mishears the same thing in the same way every time. A different recording of the same song—with the same lyrics—may not lead to the same mishearing.
“In the language” describes assemblies of words that are commonly recognized to mean something in particular—and that meaning is lost if any of those words is replaced by a synonym. Hopefully you don’t have qualms with this definition since I don’t wish to elaborate on it any further.
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