Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2025-05-10
There’s a somewhat in-the-language sense to the word combination “gnawing question,” so whenever I see the combination “annoying question” I have to stop and wonder whether it’s a reshaping of the former. Granted the latter combination of words makes sense in its own right, but this is just another situation where I wonder if the selection of one word (“annoying”) was subliminally inspired by a sound alike word (“gnawing”) in a common usage.
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There’s also some re-shaping going on between “knowing” and “gnawing”:
Then once the bids in you start getting the knowing doubt.
the knowing fear that at some point the designer must relinquish control of their own ideas
perhaps accompanied by the knowing fear that next time it could be you who’s naked
And your teeth have sunk into my soul’s flesh. Knowing at my sins. Clawing at my sins
All of a sudden he has the gnawing look of a man with something to prove
Eyes of the doll had disturbingly gnawing look
Last edited by JuanTwoThree (2010-12-29 03:03:52)
On the plain in Spain where it mainly rains.
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Nice suggestion about knowing/gnawing. I think “knowing doubt” and “knowing fear” might be genuine eggcorns, though they might have a bit of an idiom blend with “knowing look.” (Your last two examples also draw on “knowing look” in a different way).
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