Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
At dinner last night my sister-in-law, who is visiting from Toronto, pronounced the word “potion†as “potient.†I have heard this pronunciation many times. A student relates on a Facebook page, for example, how one of her teachers adhered this curious custom:
Also one time we were listening to her talk about “Romeo and Juliet” and she said potient (potion with a T.) So we asked her after she said it a couple of times, “So is it potion or potient?” and she replied saying “Potient, P-O-T-I-O-N.”
Why is “potion†so frequently pronounced as POH-shent? Perhaps the change is an accommodation to sound flow. In COCA the two most common words following “potion†are “to†and “that,†both of which encourage the transference of the alveolar/dental consonant to the preceding word. Alternately, semantic forces may be at work. Could there be some echoes, I wonder, of “potent†behind the sound switch? The eggcorn “magic potent†is common. We also find love potent number nine,†and sleeping potent.
In a post last year Pat noted the eggcorn “love portion.â€
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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Perhaps the notion of a patient in need of a potion exerts some small gravitational pull towards a terminal t.
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the notion of a patient
Good point. I found one web site comment in which the user claimed that POH-shent people were confused by “quotient,” but that doesn’t seem likely.
Have you heard the POH-shent pronunciation in British English?
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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No, can’t say I have, but it occurs to me that potient may derive from the false plural potience, which is frequently used where ‘potency’ is meant too:
Make some health potience and spam the hell out of em.
... well, until she got a family recipe for a Confidence Potience, all it really does is boost someones confidence to a certain point, a manageable point, ...
... for one reason I expect is that the effectiveness of that medication losses it’s potience within that amount of time and taking an old antibiotic could…
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Yes, I noticed when I was looking at the eggcorn “potent<<potion” that many people write “potient” for “potent” and “potiency” for “potency.” I suppose we could argue that the eggcorn was running in reverse in this case—that “potion” was hovering in the mind when these people wanted to say or write “potent.”
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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