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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
It’s possible that this is accepted usage and I just don’t know it, but none of the dictionaries I have on hand attest anything like “by” for “into,” so I’m guessing it’s not.
I’m not sure to what extent it changes the semantic meaning; “unto” is pretty archaic and it seems that a lot of the modern usage is in the phrase “unto itself.” Still, though, it’s at least possible that “a law into itself” can be interpreted differently, so I’ll put it out there for everyone else.
Citations!:
(By the way, “into itself” is a very common phrase, um, unto itself, so I have no idea what the exact number of ghits would be. But “law into itself” gets upwards of 40k; even if just a quarter of those are potential eggcorns, that’s a lot, for one specific usage.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co … 01732.html
”’I don’t believe tech is an end into itself to solve problems,’ Ross said…”
http://citp.princeton.edu/blog/2009/03/ … nvergence/
“In essence, each medium — broadcast, cable, print, the Internet — is a law into itself.”
http://forum.xda-developers.com/archive … 56177.html
”? It seems a bit of a law into itself though, where I live it seems to update with no consistency…”
http://www.fortbenningalinkaway.com/ft_ … both_a.htm
“Ft Benning is both an integral community into itself and a part of a larger community…”
http://gothamist.com/2004/07/23/park_sl … ovated.php
“It is the most populus of the boroughs and at one time was the 3rd largest city in the country and still is a city into itself.” (comments section)
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Welcome to the Forum, HarrisonB. You’ve made an interesting discovery here. You haven’t expressed your ideas about what a law or an end “into itself” might mean. “Unto itself” is usually used idiomatically to mean something like “apart, self-sufficient, by itself, on its own”. “Into itself” might be used in the same context to mean “towards itself, self-concerned, reflexively”; both significations imply independence. Is this what you had in mind? If so, I thinks it’s credible. There are caveats, that i is placed right beside u on the keypad, and also, sometimes the fingers will anticipate or pick up resonances from other words, such as “itself” here, extending the neurological tendrils of what is referred to as a WTF typo. I particularly like the second last one, “an integral community into itself”. Do you think that the 60s slang meaning of “self-loving” is intended here?
Last edited by David Bird (2010-07-28 20:55:53)
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