Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
Here I have cobbled together a list of the most common speech and writing errors that are not eggcorns. ‘Errors’ and eggcorns are not mutually exclusive, of course; eggcorns are special errors. The categories posted below come from bits found here and there on the web, and are not based on any authoritative scholarship on my part. Most were gleaned from someone else’s laboriously-prepared class notes, inadvertently exposed to me via the web, the vast free unsung academic content factory. I am a linguistics tyro, so don’t trust me on any of this, and feel free to correct, add to or tweak descriptions, and especially to suggest a more logical ordering. It’s clear that most of these categories are not mutually exclusive; some may be subtypes of others. These descriptions were applied at first to “speech production errors”. I’m applying them loosely to typed communications, as tyros will. Most of these might be called WTF typos in the jargon developed on this forum. The categories are not intended to be exhaustive, nor do they include other forms of “silicisms”: , or computer-associated errors. A glossary follows for any word ending in -eme.
1. Anticipation errors
The over-eager and prescient fingers let fly with phonemes (individual sounds) or words that they can see coming up ahead.color reef
For protection, the reef fishes hide in the reefs. They blend into the color reefs with their bright colors.
Free essays
2. Perseveration errors
This might be called a rinse-cycle error, where traces of the word, or the whole word itself, colours susceptible elements downstream.
don’t hold your breadth
it seems quitely unlikely
It sounds very great when it is the time for Hunsen of Cambodia and his hunchmen be put on such trial.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s … .google.ca
at close quarters
Curacao is the place for you. There are plenty of colorful color reefs located just off shore.
Travel article
coloring way outside the lines
A large variety of colorful Butterfly fish, Wrasse, Groupers, Jacks, Anthias, Tangs & Surgeonfish swim amongst the color reefs.
Hanauma Bay blurb
3. Feature substitution/innovation/meltdown
4. Blends
Blends can produce another existing word, with unintentional and sometimes comical change of meaning. These may or may not be eggcornical. The following blend of famished and ravenous is just a vanilla malapropism, but funny anyway.
i just dont’ get hungry…i’m ravished…even after i eat.
http://www.soulcysters.net/showthread.p … TARVING!!!
When they look meaningful and appear to be a reimagination of the word, we call them eggcorn squashes
relieviate for alleviate.
parenthial vision looks like a blend of peripheral and parenthetical.
you could hear a penny drop and I cry at the drop of a bucket
That rang a red bell in my mind
Posts on idiom blends
5. Paraphasias
A semantic paraphasia involves the substitution of an improper word that’s somehow allied in meaning. This can be a difficult error to distinguish from a Grade A eggcorn. Eggcorns are supposed to be standard for someone, and this would distinguish them from semantic paraphasia, which would be disavowed upon reconsideration by the perpetrator.
A phonological paraphasia involves the substitution of a word that sounds similar to the target word. These can either be nonsensical: take homage at and pay umbrage to, or logical: granted impunity.
6. Metathesis, consonant reversal and spoonerism:
The order of letters or sounds is reversed. These can be meaningful or not; often it’s hard to tell what role awareness played in their production. It is possible that the mind corrects the spelling of metathetical switches. The following example, collar reefs, may be eggcornical or just a mistake, wherein the jumbled letters of “coral” are recombined into a meaningful golem. Sometimes hard to distinguish from cupertinos, I suppose.
Jawdropping Free essays/term papers
Everything in this whole universe is very beautiful, especially the sea that is very attractive for many people but you never know what exactly is in it. There are many kinds of sea creatures, fish and collar reefs.
Networthy
They’ve created an underwater version of “Google Earth” that lets you visit collar reefs and even shipwrecks.
Nature film blurb
we dive into the paradise of the Red Sea visiting the magic gardens of collar reefs and its inhabitants
Others: stop on for “spot on”.
7. Common garden misspellings
i wouldn’t be that bothered by a headline, its crazy right wing people creating a rouges gallery that worries me
http://www.vanilladays.com/gallery/2010 … liverpool/
8. Common garden typos
9. Common garden malaprops
Psoriasis for sobriety
Post on eggcorn vs. malapropism
Glossary
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Sorry to be so tardy in responding to your innovative categorizations, David. These portentous posts can take some time to digest.
Perhaps in later exchanges we can get to some of the details of your categories. My first response, though, is a more general one. As I argued in my post about the street waif, Sam Antics (at the end of this thread ), I worry a bit about approaching eggcorns from a subtractive standpoint, hacking away speech errors that are not eggcorns until something is left that we agree is an eggcorn. When we have a substitution that (1) has a same/similar sound, (2) is motivated by the semantics of the replaced word, and (3) the speaker/speaker’s community believes to be the correct expression, we’ve got an eggcorn. Theoretically, we should not need to tick off a list of subtractions and exceptions. Making the eggcorn call is seldom that simple, though. Each of the pillars supporting an eggcorn stands in a forest of nonpillars that look a lot like the three pillars. Lists such as yours come into play, not to decide what an eggcorn is, but to decide whether a particular candidate really fits the definition.
It’s the second pillar, the need to establish the semantic bridge between the acorn and the eggcorn, that gives us the most trouble. I would view your nine-point list not so much as a catalog of non-eggcorns but as a categorization of the more common reasons why certain slips fail the semantic requirement for eggcorn status. The list items are, if you like, alternate explanations for a word switch, explanations that, if they are sufficient reasons for the existence of the slip, weaken the semantic rationale. The existence of an alternate explanation does in itself not rule out a parallel semantic explanation, of course. An alternate explanation could be at work and the switch could still be an eggcorn. “Nib it in the bud,†for example, may be motivated by phoneme anticipation, but it may also be motivated by the semantic connections between “nip†and “nib.†My initial feeling is that it is an eggcorn, phoneme anticipation notwithstanding.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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I could not have said it better myself, Kem. I did not imagine this post as a yardstick to see if each new entry measures up. It was meant more as a potential reference base to simplify discussions, and to spread a layer of gloss on WTFology. As always, there will be a lot of room for ambiguity and the need for champions.
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David Bird wrote:
2. Perseveration errors
This might be called a rinse-cycle error, where traces of the word, or the whole word itself, colours susceptible elements downstream.
Phoneme perseveration_…
“it seems quitely unlikely”
Not to be picayunish, Birdman, but if I understand your definitions, you may have erred in citing “quitely unlikely” as a perseveration error. “Quitely” is colored by the word downstream (“unlikely”), not vice versa. So “quitely unlikely” is really an example of an anticipation error, is it not?
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Dixon Wragg wrote:
So “quitely unlikely” is really an example of an anticipation error, is it not?
I quitely unlike that mistake. Thanks for pointing it out, Dixon.
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burred wrote:
I quitely unlike that mistake. Thanks for pointing it out, Dixon.
Apart from that, I quitely appreciate your efforts. I have bookmarked this page for future reference. It’d be nice if we had a more extensive glossary or bestiary of critters that populate this forum, such as cupertinos, Lehmanns, Aunty Lehmanns, etc. In fact, I’ve lately been thinking that an interesting book could be cobbled together from this website. Eggcorns and their cousins are too much fun to be restricted to the eggcornoscenti.
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