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#1 2010-07-02 16:18:54

Peter Forster
Eggcornista
From: UK
Registered: 2006-09-06
Posts: 1224

'mind-bugling' for 'mind-boggling'

I know this is likely to be no more than a mis-spelling of mind-buggling, which is faintly eggcornish I suppose, but suggests only being somewhat aggrieved rather than overwhelmed. Mind-bugling, on the other hand suggests being startled by an unexpected brassy blast or something otherwise mind-blowing:

The endless mind bugling thoughts inside my head might speak-up and I’ll have no choice but to blog about them. ...

It was an amazing and mind bugling experience. The fulfilment of the dream.

it feels great to know that what you’re feeling now is happening for the first time. it’s definitely exciting and mind-bugling.

... angler who has learn and mastered the skills of fly casting, Now at the age of fourteen His ability to spot,stork and catch a fish is just mind bugling. ...

Reading the above I found a typo – “mind-bulging” – which I imagine fulfills all the requirements of bogglement. Several hundred of them but here’s just one:

In that time a lot of stuff has happened, which frankly is so incredibly mind bulging that it has to be kept confidential for your own safety. ...

Last edited by Peter Forster (2010-07-02 18:49:17)

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#2 2010-07-02 16:55:51

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

Re: 'mind-bugling' for 'mind-boggling'

The mind can only take so much bugling and bulging before it buckles.

Something rotten in Liberia
It buckles the mind that such criminality is going unchecked as poverty deepens in the country.

Rwandan troubles
When I was looking through some clippings recently on the situation in Rwanda, I found a commentary by someone who’s native language was not English and who made a slight error in English, but which seemed to me completely appropriate for the situation. The journalist wrote: Rwanda buckles the mind. In many ways, Rwanda does buckle the mind. The closer you get to it, the longer you examine it, the more your mind takes on waves.

Also of note: mindbobbling. And we face the prospect of an epidemic of mindblogging. The great majority of hits on this are intentional, but some you have to wonder about. Not an eggcorn because it doesn’t quite make sense – or does it.

Office slight
The point here is they singled me out and that itself speaks volumes but what is mindblogging is I never ever spoke to them.

Landscape photo
MINDBLOGGING, SUCH BEAUTY OF NATURE EXISTS IN PAKISTAN IS A GREAT FEELING.

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#3 2010-07-02 17:48:33

klakritz
Eggcornista
From: Winchester Massachusetts
Registered: 2005-10-25
Posts: 674

Re: 'mind-bugling' for 'mind-boggling'

One more variant:

What is happening in our country today is mind bungling…
www.thetimesofnigeria.com/TON/Article.aspx?id=2707

“The outcome of the meeting is simply mind bungling and it has characterised the low level to which highly placed people can sink …
allafrica.com/stories/200207310047.html

The way we revere these writer as if they are more than an abstractive observers is mind bungling.
www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/j1/index.php?option…

It’s almost mind bungling to have countries with such rich cultural heritage trying and succeeding in surpassing Americans …
www.frumforum.com/bringing-out-the-worst-in-europe

... it is mind bungling to see missteps after missteps by these officials …
www.completesportsnigeria.com/.../evert … ised-shin/

Also, by my mind-bungling powers of deduction, I am guessing that Beato was the drummer on the Dr. Grusome Movie Morgue videos for Death Pod and Cool Place …
www.spookykids.net/gwar/gwarpage/Pearls.html

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#4 2010-07-02 19:07:52

Peter Forster
Eggcornista
From: UK
Registered: 2006-09-06
Posts: 1224

Re: 'mind-bugling' for 'mind-boggling'

And another, where rather than amazement there is a sense of disabling violation. It seems to be a common construction in many African countries.

It is really sad and mind burgling to feel helpless in your own home. Oh God please help us. I insist that this is not an attack on the Luos …

The action I saw on TV is barbaric, mind burgling and disturbing. I saw people with all sort of dangerous weapons looking for their victims …

mine is a social worker and the amount of cases she gets is mind-burgling

The carnage done by the current state is mind burgling. I was in Nigeria recently and am actually planning to go back. The underdevelopment of the state is …

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#5 2010-07-02 20:29:32

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

Re: 'mind-bugling' for 'mind-boggling'

Some experiences or problems make the brain move gently up and down:

There are a mind-bobbling selection of sizes, colors, forms, and seasons of blooms to choose from with Burpee’s selection of Border Perennials.
http://www.burpee.com/gygg/articleListing.jsp?start=9
[This appears on the homepage of retail seed behemoth Burpee. I don’t know about you, but I buy my seeds only from reshaping-friendly companies.]

The Los Feliz setting is evoked without fuss as the story builds to a mind-bobbling climax, like her novel “White Oleander,” at full throttle; I wanted to take my eyes off the page and couldn’t.
http://www.denisehamilton.com/lanoir_reviews.html

For the entire process, it’s hell of a mind bobbling ride.
http://forum.singaporeexpats.com/ftopic … start=3000

And what boggles usually bugs, too:

The search for the answers to a mind bugging mystery leads to a mythical twist which I found very odd.
http://hiroism.multiply.com/reviews/item/26

Even the explanation of a local harddisk and file systems is a mind bugging challenge.
http://pingvision.com/blog/laura/200509 … ing-drupal

So does anyone actually for a FACT know how they built the pyramids or is it still a mind bugging subject?
http://www.alien-ufos.com/ufo-alien-dis … sed-9.html

The first person to respond to that last citation gently implied that the phrase might have a different standard form:

They FINK they know, but they dont. its still a mind boggling subject!
http://www.alien-ufos.com/ufo-alien-dis … sed-9.html

“A mind-bobbling” and “a mind-bugging” both get about 60 ughits. And as with Peter’s “mind-burgling,” Africa turns up a lot as a place of origin.

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#6 2011-03-29 18:26:59

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

Re: 'mind-bugling' for 'mind-boggling'

Mind-bogging stuff really stops the thought-engines in their tracks. There are a few hundred of these. But how to know they’re not just el-isions? By looking for “bogs the mind”:

Golf swing innstructions
Do they work? That is one question that bogs the mind of many aspiring golfers, or people who are just venturing into the golfing profession.

Credit history
WOW! It bogs the mind that the big three credit bureaus have a Canadian presence

Survival of the Fabulous
The conundrum bogs the mind of openly gay and proudly flamboyant filmmaker Mike Sage, who sets out on a cross-country adventure as part of a wacky science documentary.

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#7 2011-03-30 04:18:49

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2714
Website

Re: 'mind-bugling' for 'mind-boggling'

A Spoonerized (metathesized) version that makes pretty good sense (and if standard for any of its users, with that sense, is a pretty good eggcorn):

mindgobbling applications of science

The design and detail of her dress is mindgobbling; that’s the best part. all those folds makes it look
realistic,

Total effect surrounding the movie is due to such a heavy load is totally mind gobbling. No other film industry across the globe …

(Quite a few other hits, though most seem to be advertent and tongue-in-cheek.)


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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#8 2011-03-30 06:45:05

JuanTwoThree
Eggcornista
From: Spain
Registered: 2009-08-15
Posts: 455

Re: 'mind-bugling' for 'mind-boggling'

Can I play?

the applications are mind bubbling and seemingly infinite

very interesting and mind bubbling stuff.


On the plain in Spain where it mainly rains.

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#9 2011-03-31 00:15:24

kem
Eggcornista
From: Victoria, BC
Registered: 2007-08-28
Posts: 2853

Re: 'mind-bugling' for 'mind-boggling'

This thread has produced a police line-up of shady substitutions to stand alongside “mind-boggling:”

Mind bugling
Mind-bulging
Mind-buckling
Mind-blogging
Mind-buckling
Mind-bungling
Mind-burgling
Mind-bobbling
Mind-bugging
Mind-bogging
Mind-gobbling
Mind-bubbling

Could a witness who didn’t know the phrase “mind-boggling” pick out the guilty party in the lineup? I doubt it. Several of them convey compelling images.

“Boggle,” the OED speculates, took its cue from “bogle/boggle,” an old word for a spectre, particularly one that makes horses take fright (cf. “bogey”). From its original sense of take alarm “boggle” extended its meaning in a natural way to hesitate and equivocate, and then, perhaps under the influence of “bungle” and “bob/bobble,” to the meaning fumble. In the twentieth century “mind” became the favorite subject of the verb “boggle” and in mid-century phrase “boggle the mind” was transformed into the participial adjective “mind-boggling.” The expression “mind-boggling” took off in the psychedelic sixties, when minds, as we all know, began to do unconventional things.

In recent decades the older uses of “boggle” have largely fallen by the wayside. The loss of the older meanings has allowed the word to take a semantic turn. Instead of describing the hesitation or alarm produced by a boggling event, the “boggle” part of “mind-boggling” has been inferred to mean amaze. It’s not uncommon to hear people say “I am boggled by…” and mean that they are amazed, astounded, dumbfounded by something.

“Boggle” is, as we have seen in this thread, an attractive target for substitution. The sudden resurgence of popularity associated with the word’s semantic shift, however, has also made it a candidate for replacing other words. It plays the role of eggcorn rather than acorn in the phrases “boggle your eyes” and “eyes boggle,” which are, if I understand them correctly, graphic ways of describing amazement. These phrases began to show up with some frequency, we note, after the popularity of “mind-boggling” shifted the semantic field of “boggle” away from hesitation and toward amazement. The new sense of “boggle” appears to have catalyzed a chemical reaction that included “bulge” and “ogle” in its mix to yield the expression “ my/his/her/their eyes boggle.” Here is one of the many examples on the web of eyes that boggle instead of bulge:

From a poem: “Let their eyes boggle at your impudence; The time for a poem is the moment of assertion…. ”

That “eyes bulging” is one of the targets replaced by “eyes boggling” is evidenced by the phrase “eyes boggle out:”

Forum post: “if they do it hard enough their eyes boggle out of their head ”

(Footnote: The Eggcorn Database reports another example of “boggle” as a replacer rather than a replacee: “boggle down” for “bogged down.” In this case, however, the older sense of “boggle,” that of hesitating, appears to be sparking the switch.)

Last edited by kem (2011-03-31 00:17:42)


Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.

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#10 2011-03-31 07:44:27

JuanTwoThree
Eggcornista
From: Spain
Registered: 2009-08-15
Posts: 455

Re: 'mind-bugling' for 'mind-boggling'

You oldtimers have been here before:

http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/forum/view … p?pid=4509

My bubbling is there. Boo hoo, I’m not playing now.


On the plain in Spain where it mainly rains.

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#11 2011-04-04 13:03:55

fpberger
Eggcornista
Registered: 2006-08-16
Posts: 130

Re: 'mind-bugling' for 'mind-boggling'

And one more in the same family:

A Few Math Problems. Tricky, mind-goggling, but fun! You dont need to do all.

Even if you’re not a ‘singer,’ this is mind-goggling awesome! Be your own backing vocals, acapella group, doo-wop group, or even choir!

Lots of others appear to be plays on words, either associated with swimming, virtual reality, or some other activity which uses goggles.

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