Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
A grad student at the University of Kentucky was an innocent fountain of eggcorns. I remember only his use of “underminded” as in “that was an underminded thing to say.” Meaning? underhanded? undermine?
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“I’m a bit devious and underminded†was the way a friend of mind said it—I had a hard time not laughing out loud: “wily but stupid†was the paraphrase that came to mind.
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Yes, I think of it as a blend of underhanded and undermine , with pretty certainly the morphological constructions under-X ‘surreptitious/morally despicable X’ and ADJ-minded ‘having a mind characterized by ADJ’ (as e.g. high-minded, foul-minded ), which is itself a subcase of the construction ADJ-BODYPART-ed which licenses long-legged, underhanded and many other words. It unfortunately also evokes the construction under-X-ed ‘not X-ed enough’ (e.g. under-represented, under-built , etc.)
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A related one: a friend said “We heard there were plans underfoot to bomb [a certain building].†Blending afoot with underway/under weigh , I figure, and again the nefarious atmosphere of under(handed/world/etc.) . This one seems to be standard for some, and may be eggcornish in a significant degree.
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2010-02-25 12:35:06)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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Undermine per se refers to subsurface excavation which metaphorically might refer to kicking the props out from under someone’s position or argument.
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