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#1 2009-04-05 14:40:58

jorkel
Eggcornista
Registered: 2006-08-08
Posts: 1456

Too far UPFIELD (afield)

“Too far afield” is rather idiomatic, and since upfield sounds a little bit like afield I decided to track down instances of the substitution. There were just 476 (Google) occurrences of this—just 34 with “get”—and most of them were sports references, so they made reasonable sense in the context they were being used. It’s very likely they were influenced by the idiom, but their word-for-word meaning is legitimate in its own right.

I don’t know whether the idiom originated with a sports context. The usage of afield is meant in the context of astray. (I wonder what sense of field the etymology might have involved; I’m guessing a sports context was unlikely).

I’m actually surprised there weren’t more metaphoric uses of “upfield” inspired by sports and shaped by the “afield” idiom. Speakers are always using sports analogies to provide colorful rhetoric.

One other point: we really haven’t seen many eggcorns with the reshaping a- to up-. (We’ve certainly seen the reshaping a- to a). It might be worth locating other possibilities of the former.

DefenseLink News Transcript: DoD News Briefing: Brig. Gen. Robert F …
I don’t want to get too far upfield, but let me address it briefly. The Quadrennial Defense Review had three pillars to the strategy and it was shape, respond, prepare.
www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/transcr … riptid=970 · Cached page

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#2 2009-04-05 19:49:41

burred
Eggcornista
From: Montreal
Registered: 2008-03-17
Posts: 1112

Re: Too far UPFIELD (afield)

I took your challenge, Jorkel. Is the use of upfield for afield a substitution of prefixes, or a direct substitution of words, since the two exist already? I went looking for new coinages that depend on sticking an up- where an a- should be (blushes), when the presence of up gives a new direction to the word.

The easiest find needed the presence of a b in the second position.

Chilean blog about the Beagle voyage:
The young and noble sailor Robert Fitz-Roy was also part of this mission, all upboard the Beagle ship. (http://www.nuestro.cl/eng/stories/recovery/fitz_roy.htm)

Pregnancy forum:
Welcome Becky, Marlena, Eliza, and Jo. Glad to have you all upboard .
(I couldn’t put the link in without causing problems)

We have All upboard, so I looked for “anchors upweigh”. No luck, I suppose because the direction is opposite to “away”. Upweigh is there, however, as substitution for “outweigh”:

Software forum:
That being said, that does in no way upweigh the negative side, which is that the app is very deficient in the functionality it is supposed to deliver (http://www.versiontracker.com/php/feedb … 1071147317)

Rosacea forum: As they clamp the nerve that is overactive for flushing\blushing\sweating on face therefore you can REVERSE. If one of the few % that gets too dry or the side affects upweigh the benefits then you simply reverse the procedure. (http://rosacea-support.org/community/vi … ?f=3&t=170)

Back to ab words, for upbundance, upundant and upundance:

Boat for sale:
An upbundance of storage under the berth along with a hanging locker and three drawer storage to port.
(http://www.boatpile.com/70/posts/1_POWE … 5_000.html)

Iraq war forum: In fact these countries have the richest people have the ghighest quality healthcare, and social services in the world. They have thriving and upundant societies. (http://forums.randi.org/archive/index.php/t-24275.html)

Blog: My hereos are Maddonna and daffy duck! Also lovin Homer Simpson! that man has an upundance of wisdom.

Beer forum: M-Mouthfeel is medium with an upundance of carbonation. Crisp and dry. D-This is a great beer to sit around with and have a few.
(somewhere down the list on http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/14 … &start=110)

“An upundance of carbonation” – sweet! Next, upsorb for absorb … a natural, 6000 rghits:

TV board: sup with sylar i thought he learn to upsorb powers? (http://www.tv.com/heroes/show/17552/pet … /msgs.html)

Life extension board: KH3 was developed by German scientists and contains half the procaine normally found in the GH3 tablet; with additional enzymes for those who are poorly able to upsorb nutrients from the gastrointestinal tract. (http://forum.lef.org/pr.aspx?f=35&m=22312)

There was only one “upsorbent” (except for the cute acombination on an exercise site: pull-upsorbent arm hang):

to keep you black car looking good well there are several alternatives you can use ether you can gat a wather upsorbent rag it looks like its made if skin/leather but is has a cream white color this is realy effective sucks up wather (http://www.automotivehelper.com/topic266224.htm

I couldn’t leave the next example out, despite the young age of the poster and the wobbly spelling throughout (note tank of assed). Asked to imagine the outcome of a fight between Spongebob Squarepants and a ninja:

i think that the ninga would win we would bring sponge bob on land and put him in a tank of assed so insted of obsorving water he would upsorb water
(well… : http://fans.askaninja.com/forum/topics/ … opic:18155)

Another odd misspelling, upsense for absence:

The role of juju in football/soccer:
u see the reason why no body is responding or replying to this post of urs is because you,re just being a hippocrite excuse my language but i donot know the actual word to use inthe upsense of this one. (http://discussions.ghanaweb.com/viewtop … 4b30666b3a)

I looked next for “at the upex” – sounds logical, don’t you think? Unfortunately, the search yielded only 6 silicisms and 13 references to an acronym.

Finally, how about upsessment , maybe in the context of being promoted? Upsessment is there, but only as a mangled version of obsession. I know from a previous search that there are many many uses of “upsess” for obsess. I tried to find, at that time, instances of a blend of upset and obsess, without luck. It’s a pure misspelling.

Last edited by burred (2009-04-05 20:02:55)

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#3 2009-04-05 20:18:25

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2714
Website

Re: Too far UPFIELD (afield)

Really interesting and fun data.
.
“Upsessive” gets over 300 hits—judging by the first few pages most look pretty genuine. E.g.:

upsessive compulsive – checking e-mail and running out to the mailbox [repeated]

i liked her but didnt feel the same way. soooo i really want to ask her to prom buttttt i dont want to come off as being upsessive? should i ask her?

OK your proud to be a Juggalo, own a ICP or Twiztid shirt, but when thats all you wear thats upsessive. And if you think ICP is cool

Am I doing something wrong??? i txt him ALMOST everyday,is that upsessive??

This one has the interesting and extremely eggcornish analysis available under which it is derived not from obsess but from (be) upset . ( Regressive < regret ?? Egressive < egret ????? What else?)
.
fwiw I’d also collected excessive(-compelsive) and abscessive-compulsive (also spelled absessive ).


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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#4 2009-04-05 23:24:34

burred
Eggcornista
From: Montreal
Registered: 2008-03-17
Posts: 1112

Re: Too far UPFIELD (afield)

David – upsessive compulsive, excessive-compelsive and abcessive-compulsive killed me. The second and third of these provide clearer images of the affliction than does its true name.

I realized after reading your posts that I had only looked for the adjective upsorbent and not the noun form upsorbant. That search lead first to another Squarepants riff:

Who lives in a pinapple under the sea?
Spongebob Squarepants!
Upsorbant and yellow and porous is he.
Spongebob Squearepants!
(http://slye-soul.deviantart.com/journal/18807640/)

And then this lil gem—self upsorbant for “self-absorbed”:

Comment on Lil Bow Wow video:
another self upsorbant kid
(http://74.125.93.104/search?q=cache:OYr … =firefox-a)

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#5 2009-04-06 08:34:45

burred
Eggcornista
From: Montreal
Registered: 2008-03-17
Posts: 1112

Re: Too far UPFIELD (afield)

You know it’s a natural, Jorkel, when a wise egger finds it credible.

The significance of these prefixes may be familiar, but it won’t hurt to have another look. A-, ab, and abs are Greek and Latin prefixes for “from, away.” Ob- is exasperatingly protean: toward, in front of, against, over, totally, inversely. Up- is an adverb, related to both hypo and hyper, that enters easily into compound words. Absorb = to swallow up or suck in (Online ED). So to absorb is to suck from or suck away.

Some new goodies, the first using up- with the sense of “more than”: upnormal:

Women’s health blog:
treatment for upnormal bleeding
(http://womenshealthtips.blogspot.com/20 … eding.html)

Security blog:
SECURITY: Abuse & upnormal traffic in 207.218.250.181
http://www.mail-archive.com/nanog@merit … 19370.html

Qatar Law document:
Money Laundering: The operations which are directly or indirectly related to the acts … which by its nature contradict the personal and commercial normal activities that the Committee deems suspicious or upnormal in view of its volume, repetition, nature
(http://www2.dsm.com.qa/publish/Document … Attachment)

A perky one: upbreast! Used for “up-to-date” or “updated”. Abreast (with breasts in line, one to a customer) has been used figuratively in this sense since 1655. Upbreast seems to be being used in these instances in the sense of “directly in contact with.” This would appear to be confirmed below in David Tuggy’s post with examples of “up to breast.”

Newsblog:
They had a wonderful way of keeping me upbreast of issues in the Black community.
(http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/tow … nline.html)

Radio blog:
It was such a pleasure to wake up every morning to watch CHER and her team keep me upbreast with the news for the day.
(http://forums.ktla.com/eve/forums/a/tpc … /276103101)

Phillippines News reader:
BIR Manila to keep the withholding agents, business sector and the concerned agencies, both public and private upbreast and update on what to do relative to the full implementation of the new law.
http://www.pia.gov.ph/default.asp?m=12& … no=7&date=

Edit: My reading of upbreast was added upon seeing David Tuggy’s comment below.

Last edited by burred (2009-04-06 13:16:32)

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#6 2009-04-06 10:23:55

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2714
Website

Re: Too far UPFIELD (afield)

And then this lil gem—self upsorbant for “self-absorbed”: ¶ Comment on Lil Bow Wow video: another self upsorbant kid

Just suck it up and keep going!

Last edited by DavidTuggy (2009-04-06 11:08:23)


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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#7 2009-04-06 11:26:54

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2714
Website

Re: Too far UPFIELD (afield)

Re keeping upbreast, a relevant blend (like you suggest for upbreast itself, from abreast with up to date/snuff/etc. ):

We invite you to join the forum at a related site where you can keep up to breast with arbitration and learn how to deal with it.

So the good captain tries to stay up to breast with current computational devices and trends in the æthyr

While the Ryans are keen to maintain the history of Perth, they are also all for development and are keeping up to breast with plans

Also noted:

We are trying to hold a breast of the situation

Both of the above were noted by Mike McQueeny on “The List” ( http://www.mcqueeny-lock.com/Hexagon.html ), which is an absolute gold mind for our kind of data.
.
There are unsurprisingly dozens of (wink wink) usages of keep a breast for keep abreast which are clearly purposeful, but a fair number seem to be innocent mistakes of one sort or another. (None eggcorns, that I’ve noticed.)
.
Also:

the Mexicans had no chance. They could not get more than two horses astride one another on the narrow road.

Four New Beetles road astride each other at a triumphant gate… as one of GP’s guardian aliens looked on.

Let me tell you something, not ALL cyclists “gang up” to ride 10 astride or ignore basic roadsafety rules.

I wish I were one of the Presidential speech writers. Or at least, I wish I could stand over the people who are with a big catholic-school-nun type ruler so I could whack them on the hand every time the letters R-E-C-E-S-S-I-O-N find themselves sitting astride one another in a sentence.

By 1847 the first sovereign black republic in Africa had been declared and 17 distinct cultures lived astride one another

(Likely a blend of abreast with beside , at least in some of the usages.)
.
Unfortunately the only case of “feeling abeat” that I came across was a silicism of the OCR variety: the original was pretty clearly “feeling about”, not “feeling upbeat”.

Last edited by DavidTuggy (2009-04-06 11:50:32)


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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#8 2009-04-06 13:19:52

burred
Eggcornista
From: Montreal
Registered: 2008-03-17
Posts: 1112

Re: Too far UPFIELD (afield)

DavidTuggy wrote:

We are trying to hold a breast of the situation

Stimulating! Note that I’ve edited my post with the confirmation that your examples provided.

Last edited by burred (2009-04-06 13:20:52)

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#9 2009-04-11 18:55:02

kem
Eggcornista
From: Victoria, BC
Registered: 2007-08-28
Posts: 2851

Re: Too far UPFIELD (afield)

I’ve enjoyed this thread. My favs were “upbundance” and “upbreast.” I also laughed at the confusion of “astride” and “aside/beside.” The phrase “two horses astride one another” calls to mind the process that results in baby horses.

In an ideal world there would be entries in the eggcorn database that say:

“Up-“ <<>> “a-/ab-“: These two prefixes, the Germanic “up” (movement or orientation in a direction above the speaker) and the Latinate “a-/ab-“ (away from), are sometimes interchanged because of their analogous meanings. Etc.

And

“Inner-/intra-“ <<>> “inter-.“ The Germanic “inner” and the Latin “intra-,” both referring to what is inside or within, are often confused with the Latin “inter-,” which means between, among. The meanings of “intra-“ and “inter-“ are carefully distinguished, at least in Latin, but they have enough overlap in meaning to warrant the eggcorn label when they are “innerchanged.” Etc.

And

“By-/bi-“ <<>> “bi-.” The Latin prefix for two (“bi-“) is sometimes confused with the Old English “be-/bi-/by-,” meaning around, local position, wrong direction, indirect, out-of-the-way. In some cases the two spheres of meaning can overlap. A byroad, for example, can also be a bi-road. Etc.

I’m less certain about using generic entries for “pre-“ / “pro-“ and for “in-“ (=not) / “un-.” Their meanings are close enough that imagery switches are not always clear. Examples probably have to be considered on a case-by-case basis.

Last edited by kem (2009-09-18 23:11:56)


Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.

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#10 2009-04-22 11:57:59

kem
Eggcornista
From: Victoria, BC
Registered: 2007-08-28
Posts: 2851

Re: Too far UPFIELD (afield)

In summarizing the jujitsu of eggcornical preposition replacement in my last post, I started thinking prepositional emplacement, the insertion of a preposition into a place where it doesn’t belong.

English and the Romance languages went though periods of latinate correction during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in the years when Latin was the unchallenged second language of scholarship. One target of this grammatical zeal was the lost preposition. Some English and French words that had assimilated their Latin-derived prepositional prefixes had their prepositions restored. “Adore” is one of these rescued words. Derived from L. ad + orare, “adore” lost its interior “d” in the middle ages and got it back in the Renaissance.

This tendency to correct words to their Latin sources would be nothing more than a footnote to an essay on the strong influence exercised by classical languages in this period, were not for the fact that some words were restored under false assumptions. One of these hypercorrective restorations happened to the word “advance.” It looks like it derives from L. “ad-“ + “vance,” does it not? But there is no Latin word “vance.” High school French suggests an alternate history for the word: in French the cognate is “avance” (En avance is a common expression for “early.”). The Latin source of the word “avance” is probably L. “ab-“ + “ante,” meaning from before. In the sixteenth century some English and French writer, under the impression that the initial letter was a remnant of the Latin preposition “ad,” began to spell the word as “advance.” French soon recovered from the misstep, English never. It is a little known fact that Wellington, the man who fought to keep the world safe from democracy, warned his troops on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo that if they were not victorious every man Jack of them would be forced to change the spelling of “advance.” The troops shouted “Long live the English hypercorrection.”

“Advantage” is another of these hypercorrected fellows. Its history is parallel to that of its cousin, “advance.” The word “admiral” is now believed to have suffered from similar hypercorrection to a supposed Latin “ad-“ prefix. The word “admiral” derives, it is thought, from an early Arabic term “amir,” leader, and immediately after its borrowing from Arabic the word was spelled without a “d.” But it came to English through Latin, causing grammarians to think that it must have a suppressed history in the Latin language. Various attempts were made to restore the prefix to one of the Latin prepositions beginning with “a.” The “ad-“ restoration stuck, giving us a word that looks like it comes from “ad-“ + “mirus,” presumably a cousin of “admire” (which really does derive from a Latin “ad-“ word: “ad” + “mirari”, to wonder at ). The confusion between “admiral” and “admirable” may be the reason that we call certain species of European and North American butterflies “admirals.” The name has puzzled entomologists, who could see no connection between the office and the insect. The butterfly with the lambent orange stripes was originally called the “admirable” butterfly.

Last edited by kem (2014-06-28 07:46:04)


Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.

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#11 2009-04-22 21:44:46

burred
Eggcornista
From: Montreal
Registered: 2008-03-17
Posts: 1112

Re: Too far UPFIELD (afield)

Kem, you do sometimes put the rest of us in the shade. Fascinating post, really wonderful throughout.

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#12 2009-04-23 15:13:31

nilep
Eggcornista
Registered: 2007-03-21
Posts: 291

Re: Too far UPFIELD (afield)

kem wrote:

It is a little known fact that Wellington, the man who fought to keep the world safe from democracy, warned his troops on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo that if they were not victorious every man Jack of them would be forced to lose change the spelling of “advance.” The troops responded by shouting “Long live the English hypercorrection.”

I presume that was shouted especially loudly by the archers waving their fingers.

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#13 2009-06-29 17:47:22

kem
Eggcornista
From: Victoria, BC
Registered: 2007-08-28
Posts: 2851

Re: Too far UPFIELD (afield)

Perhaps we should add to this (overly long) thread the tendency to switch the Latin “ad” to the English “at.” The database discusses cross-language eggcorns that replace “ad” with “and,” such as “and infinitum.” The Latin loan phrases “ad hominem,” “ad nauseum,” and “ad infinitum” also appear, with great frequency, as “at hominem,” “at nauseum,” and “at infinitum,” substituting “at,” an English preposition of locality, for the Latin “ad,” which usually indicates “direction toward.”


Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.

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#14 2009-06-29 23:39:39

patschwieterman
Administrator
From: California
Registered: 2005-10-25
Posts: 1680

Re: Too far UPFIELD (afield)

Kem wrote:

The Latin loan phrases “ad hominem,” “ad nauseum,” and “ad infinitum” also appear, with great frequency, as “at hominem,” “at nauseum,” and “at infinitum,” substituting “at,” an English preposition of locality, for the Latin “ad,” which usually indicates “direction toward.”

Ad nauseam. But the slip is understandable—it’s easy to fall under the sound-symbolic sway of “ad infinitum” and “ad libitum”....

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#15 2009-06-30 01:12:08

burred
Eggcornista
From: Montreal
Registered: 2008-03-17
Posts: 1112

Re: Too far UPFIELD (afield)

The subject of domestication of Latin loan phrases is a good one. For example, though David Tuggy mentioned it in passing, someone should really do a post on et all, which is an eggcorn with more than 100,000 hits on the web.

At nauseam is a great eggcorn. At infinitum has eggcornish leanings, though if this at is a preposition of locality, then the meaning has changed, so that it doesn’t make as much sense at the end of a list. “To infinity” is more logical than “at infinity”, but I can see someone imagining himself at infinity. I envy him that ability. It might be like the very common belief that a given lake is “bottomless”. How I wish I could imagine a bottomless lake.

The meaning of at hominem would be clearer for those who don’t know ad, but the underlying image has not necessarily changed. This at is just as likely to be an at of directionality. At and ad might ultimately come from the same (inferred) PIE root, after all, but that goes so far back that the connection is mute.

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#16 2010-11-17 11:08:04

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2714
Website

Re: Too far UPFIELD (afield)

Just ran across this:

There are monthly or quarterly meetings held to upbreast each other of any disaster happenings in and around the country.

Update was presumably the intended target here, rather than up-to-date as in the quasi-prepositional usages.


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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#17 2010-12-21 19:32:36

kem
Eggcornista
From: Victoria, BC
Registered: 2007-08-28
Posts: 2851

Re: Too far UPFIELD (afield)

Update was presumably the intended target here,

Could also be “abreast,” as in “keeping abreast of the issues.”


Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.

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#18 2010-12-21 21:08:23

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2714
Website

Re: Too far UPFIELD (afield)

“Right again as usual!”, cried the Duchess. “What a clear way you have of putting things!”


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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#19 2016-03-05 06:47:47

Dixon Wragg
Eggcornista
From: Cotati, California
Registered: 2008-07-04
Posts: 1375

Re: Too far UPFIELD (afield)

Here’s another “up-” for “ab-” substitution:

Very very worst I met with an accident due to driver fault and bus get upset ed at night 1 pm after the accident driver upscond
bus company review

Company directors upscond, new management not paying back ou invested money
complaint

he thought i’ll be back after 2 days after a 2 days absent. but his company has decleared him upsconded when he reach to india…
trouble

The “up” in “upscond” could evoke the image of getting up to leave. Interestingly, it looks like nearly all the examples of “upscond” I encountered were from India. They apparently use that word a lot there.

Last edited by Dixon Wragg (2016-03-05 15:43:42)

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#20 2016-03-06 11:41:54

David Bird
Eggcornista
From: The Hammer, Ontario
Registered: 2009-07-28
Posts: 1690

Re: Too far UPFIELD (afield)

Upscond bears the scars from being up ducted before.

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#21 2022-09-14 12:23:52

Peter Forster
Eggcornista
From: UK
Registered: 2006-09-06
Posts: 1222

Re: Too far UPFIELD (afield)

This seems the handiest place to park the upsurb I encountered recently. Here it supplants usurp.

Gaul with Caiatl’s help upsurbed and threw Calus into Leviathan in the Midnight Coup

Here’s upsurred doing a bit of usurping having tired of absurdity.

The brother going to save his sister and country from an evil family that basically upsurred them and wanted to abuse the country power for themselves.

Back to the absurd

No group member was disrespectful when a idea was given, no matter how upsurred it was.

Abseiling absurdly

We upsailed down the canyon during the dry season so there was no water.

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#22 2023-09-06 07:21:30

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2714
Website

Re: Too far UPFIELD (afield)

abraid/abrade is relevant. Also upprehension. This discussion has indeed gone pretty far upfield.

Last edited by DavidTuggy (2023-09-08 19:08:38)


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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