Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
Inspired/collected from the following infographic, hat tip to David McCandless (see bottom right):
http://web.comhem.se/norre/football_map.gif
I am actually surprised (based on search of the forum) that this hasn’t been nominated before! Maybe it has and I am no good at search. It happens. Moving on.
I like “Working progress” for a couple of reasons, just as a phrase and never mind the eggcorness:
1. It has a dusting of optimism that “living document” doesn’t have. I always thought document would make more of itself, I suppose it’s getting by, but it’s happy, you know, oh well.
2. it implies the artifact is a player, which is pretty fascinating. It’s not “oh right f**king progress!!” or “we’re making progress!” I am excited to see this progress go to work.
As for eggcorn suitability, I thought it might be a cupertino effect at first, but the internet leaves me on the fence.
Given the similarity to jargon like “living document” and its use in the above graphic, I think this should qualify. peer review, shoot!
Last edited by el tomboto (2011-01-05 22:36:12)
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Looks like a working one. There seem to be lots of hits out on the Inet. I like the way it makes the roles/parts of speech of the pieces shift around, to where progress is the head noun, modified by working, rather than work being head and modified by in progress.
I like it.
Congrats, and welcome to the forum, tomboto. (Sounds like an Ecuadorian Indian name, somehow—where is it from?)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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el tomboto is the fun spanish version of a nickname I received during (after?) a particularly inebriated/inspired robot dance performance on a patio belonging to a fellow air force enlistee. Generally people call me Tom but El Tomboto is a lot of fun to say. Thank you for the feedback!
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I saw the same infographic (via Strange Maps) and immediately googled: eggcorn “working progress”.
(So, obviously, I’m in favor.)
With cursory googling, I couldn’t find the collocation often used as a substitute for “work in progress”. Nonetheless, I like the interpretation of “working progress” as a usable, functional prototype. It’s “working” because one can use it, and “progress” because it’s incomplete yet better than nothing.
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