Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
A friend of mine ”... is looking to buy a 1/2 bed bunglelow in the <local> area …”
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Cowabunga, dood, welcome to the forum. This one has possibilities. What separates an eggcorn from a malaprop or a mondegreen is that an eggcorn has to make sense. The connection it makes has to be a logical one, it has to express a alternative understanding of the original. In the case of a bunglelow, what has been bungled? That part is hard to imagine. Having separated “bungalow” into two components, however, we can now see the “low” suffix clearly, and that part makes sense to me, in reference to the profile of the house.
A bungalow is a low one story house. The word comes from Hindi, through Gujarati baá¹…galo, for a Bengali-style thatched dwelling. In fact “Bengali” and “bungalow” are the same word. The same root is in “Bangladesh”, for “Bengali land”. It’s hard to know which route landed it in English – alternate accounts credit Persian and Portuguese. It is still called a bangalô in Portuguese.
For that reason it’s ironic that Indians can get it confused with a package or bundle:
Classified ad India
NICE LAND AND BUNDALOW AT PRIME LOCATION AT JAIPUR
A Malaysian has perhaps recognized the root word:
Malaysian classified ad
Free-hold Agri-land for Sale with a single storey Banglelow has 7 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms
Another hit, from America:
Military training
Diesel School was located in a bungle low type wood building just west of Submarine school.
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Sometimes “bunkalow” replaces “bungalow.” “Bunkalow” may be a double-yolker: a bungalow is a low house (lowlife house?) that you rent so you can bunk down. As in this entry:
Gossip blog entry: “Lindsay Lohan is doing her part for the U.S. Olympic team—on Tuesday, she reportedly shared an ‘intimate night’ with gold medalist Shaun White—he’s only 19, but he’s a legend among skateboarders & snowboarders—he’s been traveling the world since he was 14—he obviously hasn’t been going to school—asked about Lindsay Lohan, he said ‘her & I met at the famous “bunkalow 8” (it’s “bungalow”).’ ”
There are a few examples of the “bunkalow/bungalow” switch on English language sites. An example below. Most of the “bunkalow” spellings, however, are on non-English sites, especially German ones. Which makes sense, given the similarity of the sounds for “k” and “g” at the end of German syllables.
Comment on travel picture site: “Ko Tao Resort is the place where we stayed 2 nights. 1st night at bunkalow next to the beach abd 2nd night at Paradise zone which is on top of the hill.”
Last edited by kem (2010-07-05 12:14:41)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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Best (spoof) explanation for the word “bungalow” is that they ran out of bricks and had to bung a low roof on it.
Understand the philosophy of the concept of an eggcorn. I still can’t quite make the “bungle” part relevant, except that the whole concept of a one-storey building is a bit of a bungle (I hate ground floor life, and it limits your options in times of flood).
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