Eggcorn Forum

Discussions about eggcorns and related topics

You are not logged in.

Announcement

Registrations are currently closed because of a technical problem. Please send email to if you wish to register.

The forum administrator reserves the right to request users to plausibly demonstrate that they are real people with an interest in the topic of eggcorns. Otherwise they may be removed with no further justification. Likewise, accounts that have not been used for posting may be removed.

Thanks for your understanding.

Chris -- 2018-04-11

#1 2010-02-13 00:52:35

David Bird
Eggcornista
From: The Hammer, Ontario
Registered: 2009-07-28
Posts: 1690

"obliverate" for obliterate

Obliverate must be a blend of “obliterate” and “oblivion”: to obliterate to oblivion. I don’t think oblivious works its way in there. I heard this one on the radio, in a piece about forensic examination of skulls. The sutures between skull plates obliverate with age, apparently.

Concerns about the supercollider
CERN to build a bigger hlc. the current hlc not big enough to obliverate our planet.

Hated words
obliverate — obliterate
A street urchin in a Dickens novel wouldn’t even pronounce “obliterate” this way. My boss did. I don’t work there anymore.

Game site
Since the Trio have High Speed Regeneration, how the hell do you stop them? I mean you pretty much have to cut one of them in half or completely obliverate them.

News comment
‘till the end of time NO ONE will ever understand the situation in the Middle East – so why even try. Let them obliverate each other to their hearts’ content.

Offline

 

#2 2010-02-13 17:46:34

patschwieterman
Administrator
From: California
Registered: 2005-10-25
Posts: 1680

Re: "obliverate" for obliterate

A great, find – it’s so elegant and convincing at once.

Looking around at the etymology of “obliterate,” I realized that there might be a bit of eggcornishness in the word’s origins. Usually, it’s listed has having been a combination of the Latin prefix “ob” plus “littera.” The explanations for the combo don’t seem to be all that clear to me, but the basic idea is that the letters of a word are getting expunged or written over. The OED goes for this general idea.

But other dictionaries start adding other possibilities. The AHD throws in the idea that “oblitus,” the past participle of the Latin word for “to forget” (which is in turn the root for “oblivion”) might be exerting some influence:

n oblittera-re, oblittera-t-, to erase, from ob littera-s (scri-bere), (to write) over letters (ob, over; see ob- + littera-s, accusative pl. of littera, letter) and from obli-tus, past participle of obli-vi-sci-, to forget; see oblivion.
http://www.wordnik.com/words/obliterate/etymologies

Even if this is accurate, I don’t think it’s in any way a violation of our “etymological rule” because the connection is just too submerged to be visible to the average speaker.

The Century Dictionary brings up yet another possible “influence.” The past participle of another Latin word – “oblinere,” “to blot out” – is also “oblitus”:

from Latin obliteratus, oblitteratus, past participle of obliterare, oblitterare (later Italian obliterare = Spanish obliterar = Portuguese oblitterar = French oblitérer), erase, blot out (a writing), blot out of remembrance (cf. oblinere, past participle oblitus, erase, blot out), from ob, over, + litera, littera, a letter: see letter.
http://www.wordnik.com/words/obliterate/etymologies

So we may (or may not) have all sorts of layers of cross-influence at work here.

Incidentally, the etymologies above are courtesy of the Wordnik.com site, which has just started to impinge on my consciousness in the last few months. I still don’t feel I completely understand the site and the various lexical tools it offers, but I got a lot more interested when I realized that Erin McKean (Verbatim quarterley, etc.) and Grant Barrett (Double-Tongued Dictionary guy) are two of the main forces behind it.

Offline

 

#3 2010-02-13 18:26:36

kem
Eggcornista
From: Victoria, BC
Registered: 2007-08-28
Posts: 2851

Re: "obliverate" for obliterate

So good it almost looks like an intentional pun. But I see many examples that don’t seem to be punning.


Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.

Offline

 

Board footer

Powered by PunBB
PunBB is © 2002–2005 Rickard Andersson
Individual posters retain the copyright to their posts.

RSS feeds: active topicsall new posts