Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
You are not logged in.
Registrations are currently closed because of a technical problem. Please send email to
The forum administrator reserves the right to request users to plausibly demonstrate that they are real people with an interest in the topic of eggcorns. Otherwise they may be removed with no further justification. Likewise, accounts that have not been used for posting may be removed.
Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
This eggcorn can be found in both intentional and accidental usage on the Web.
Intentional: Game titles, movie title, and the Web site http://www.duelpurpose.com, whose motto is, “Don’t bring a knife to a gun fight.”
Accidental: “Duel purpose exercise device,” “duel purpose street bike,” etc.
Offline
Welcome to the forum, dgoldstein. Confusion between duel and dual goes way back, apparently. We can add it to the small collection of folk etymologies, or deep time eggcorns, that developed within Latin. Another example is labyrinth » laborinth. Duel was born of M.L. duellum, which meant one-on-one combat (mano to mano). But O.L. duellum was the original form of bellum, or “war”, that was reanalyzed over time to identify the prefix as duo, for dual.
Offline
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
Offline