Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2025-05-10
I frequent a web forum in which one user wrote, “Eh, not trying to be a neigh-sayer, but. . . .” (There was no equine pun in the second clause.)
Yrs,
AKMA
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Welcome back, AKMA. “Neigh-sayer” is certainly a common expression on the web. When not an intentional pun, it is hard to know how the users understand the expression. The neighing of horses has no associated negativity that I know of. I suspect that this confusion is a kind of mondegreen where a misheard expression ends up with a radically different signification. Amusing, though.
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The best I could come up with for a meaning would be “meaningless (but noisy) vocalizationsâ€; it doesn’t seem a particularly felicitous way to say that, but it might conceivably be what was intended.
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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