Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2025-05-10
This one has not been seen on this site before:
”...it seems the portuguese were all over the place and did not make a
big fuzz about it…” (from an email communication)
Googling “fuzz about it” yields almost 11,000 results, the considerable majority of which are this eggcornish use—though I’m not sure we can call it an eggcorn. Is the meaning connection there? Can we connect “fuss” with either the usual definition of “fuzz” as a tactile texture or with the slang meaning of “fuzz” as police? I have a vague feeling that we can…
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We can connect almost anything. Do those who use it do so? These fuzzy spots make it hard to tell for sure.
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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On some level, people who say “make a fuzz” could be thinking of someone acting like a cop (“fuzz”), metaphorically “busting” you for something you said or did. Or maybe they’re thinking of the static on a TV or radio, which is kinda visually/sonically “fuzzy”, so that “giving someone static” translates into “making a fuzz”.
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