Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
You are not logged in.
Registrations are currently closed because of a technical problem. Please send email to
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
So ‘Happy Eastern!’ seems to be a remarkably common greeting this weekend – just try http://twitter.com/#search?q=eastern. So common that I feel sure that somebody must have an explanation for why the ‘n’ at the end is the correct spelling. But after a whole bunch of googling I’m still drawing a blank. Can anyone else find evidence of an eggcorn among the eggs?
Offline
My understanding is that Easter is a Christian remodelling of the older spring equinox celebrations. So the words for Easter and eastern are both derived from the rising of the sun in the East and the rebirth of the new year. My Brazilo-Italian friend says Eastern for Easter all the time, but I know she’s not making a connection to a compass direction, but is just confused by the similarity of the two words.
That being said, there are more reasons to associate Easter with the East. In the Bible, the birth of Jesus was associated with a star in the East (presumable for the same reasons as above, although the Wise Men from the East, following a star in the East to get to Bethlehem, is not completely coherent geographically). And I wonder if Happy Easterners make a connection to the Middle East.
Offline
@David: Hm, judging from the Wikipedia page for the goddess Eostre the Easter:East connection is a bit more tenuous than would explain the connection, though I’m willing to believe there’s something there. Probably many of the happy easterners are like your friend from .br and don’t have English as a first language but I suspect a lot of them do.
Offline
Fascinating link, malte, thank you. Perhaps you can help me to understand the controversy further, because although I read the wikipedia entry and the accompanying discussion page, which is also revealing, something is still uncertain in my mind. From what I can tell, the controversy is over whether a goddess with a name like Easter is being referred to in the Anglo-Saxon equivalent for April, _Ä’ostur-monath_. With or without her, and with or without any pagan festivals, there is little or no doubt that the words “east” and “Easter” are etymologically related, and refer to dawn in some direct or indirect way, if I’ve got it right.
Offline
It looks like it. But my impression is that the people who are wishing each other a happy eastern are very much not making that connection.
Offline
although the Wise Men from the East, following a star in the East to get to Bethlehem, is not completely coherent geographically.
The post you refer to is quite confused. In the Greek text of Matthew 2:1, the wise men are said to be “from the East.” The next verse says that “we have seen his star (while) in the East.” The Greek prepositional phrase could be either adjectival or adverbial-one just chooses the reading that makes sense. Same is true in English. And the reason that tradition talks about three magi is, in all likelihood, because there were three gifts.
Talking about this at Easter feels just wrong.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
Offline
Some commentators have it that if _á¼Î½ τῇ ἀνατολῇ_ from v.2 is taken as modifying the star, it should be translated something like “in/at its risingâ€, rather than “to the east of usâ€. The old New English Bible , for one, translates: “We observed the rising of his star.†(Agreed, it’s an odd Easter topic.)
.
(fwiw I can see either kind of reading as adverbial and to some extent as adjectival: the phrase can be taken adverbially to modify the place the seeing happened or the place where the seen event (the star’s appearance/rising) happened; or it can be thought of as adjectival to the extent that it modifies the subject ‘we’ or the object ‘his star’. Prepositional phrases surprisingly often exhibit this kind of indeterminacy.)
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2010-04-03 15:02:47)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
Offline