Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2025-05-10
The substitution of “pairing” for “paring” is so common that ads for paring knives sometimes use the word “pairing”. It is happening today Nov 30, 2010 on http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products … ing-knife/
or just google: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22pairing+knife%22
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So give us a good rationale for the meaning: how does a paring knife function to pair anything?
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And welcome to the forum. I expect we all resemble you (or at least your name) in some degree.
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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I think that perhaps Nitpicker, like me, did not at first realise that this sort of misuse belongs in the
“Slips, innovations and reshapings” forum.
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Yeah, it takes a while to realize that an eggcorn should present a unique imagery which justifies the word choice.
By the way, I previously posted on pearing knife as a knife which is used to remove the rind from a pear…
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Here’s an example I stumbled upon while researching another eggcorn:
A two inch pairing knife is more than enough to cause a life threatening injury.
discussion
I think it could be an eggcorn in some cases, because cutting something in two can be seen as “pairing” it (i.e., making a thing into a pair of things).
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