Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
This isn’t entirely new to this site, as witness patschwieterman’s post from some time ago (on an “indefeatigable”/”indefatigable” thread):
A famous early Language Log post pointed out the confusion between vows and vowels for some speakers: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/language … 00238.html
...but it isn’t on our eggcorn list and it probably should be. Here’s the example I stumbled upon today:
“My parents are having a vowel renewal.” (from a website related to weddings).
Googling “vowel renewal” yields around 3200 hits, the vast majority of which are this eggcorny thing (not sure how many unique hits, though).
In addition to the obvious sound similarity, especially to those who are mush-mouthed/mush-eared, I think there’s enough of a meaning connection to make a case for eggcorn status: To renew one’s vows is sure to require plenty of vowels, possibly including “Oo” and “Aa” (That’s the sound of the men workin’ on the chain gang). But seriously, folks, I think some speakers/writers may generalize from vowels to verbal communication in general, hence confusing “vowels” with “vows”. Seems eggcorny to me.
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