Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
“At breakneck speed” means “at great speed”, so is this just a single instance of merging two phrases under stress of an interview? Or did the transcriber put words in someone’s mouth?
http://www.wpix.com/news/local/wpix-coy … 2437.story
Excerpt: “This dog-like monster just sank his teeth into my leg,” Happel told PIX News. “I dropped everything in my hands to try and distract the creature … I was running at great-neck speed and screaming at it and then it sank its teeth into my upper leg and arm.”
I don’t think so… Google for “greatneck speed” shows many hits exhibiting this phasing in context – but, wow, check this one out in a published work:
http://books.google.com/books?id=f6bIXo … 22&f=false
“Living in the shadow of the Freud family” By Sophie Freud, 2007:
“January 1, 1941 We start to pack at greatneck speed, sell our china, stop sleeping, arrange things, stick photos into albums, take touching farewell from …”
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Welcome to the forum, czearfoss.
About ten percent of the eggcorns we find each year are proposed by new (or relatively new) arrivées at the Eggcorn Forum. I believe that you have entered the ranks of that rarified ten percent. I see about a dozen examples of “greatneck speed” on the web.
Some would analyze “greatneck speed” as a blidiom, an idiom blend of “great speed” and “breakneck speed.” But calling an expression a blend is an explanation of how a phrase came about, not what it is. Idiom blends in which the substituted words have similar sounds often qualify as eggcorns, especially if the acorn->eggcorn transition could have happened in the absence of the blend.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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I found this on a startupnation.com discussion about “coming down the pike/pipe”:
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Jul 06, 2006 11:15 PM ET Quote
Points: 0 Vote
I agree with pike.
I`ve noticed that some phrase distortions only appear in certain parts of the country. One of my favorites has to be one I`ve only heard in New York City.
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Could this be more common regionally, where people are more aware that there exists a city called Great Neck, New York? Supposition being that “great neck speed” is that Great Neck some distance away, so you need to go fast to get there?
Or perhaps it originated in a place where Great Neck was the nearest big city, and the pace is faster in big cities…? (Probably unlikely since Great Neck is very near to NYC)
Or maybe because there are direct non-stop train connections between NYC and Great Neck?
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