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Chris -- 2018-04-11

#1 2011-03-12 03:52:20

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

"consoler" for "counselor"

From an application for a Mensa scholarship(!): “I marched into the consoler’s office…”. This one is apparently new to the Eggcorn Forum. I believe it may be an eggcorn, at least in some cases, because of the obvious similarity in meaning, while at the same time, the spelling of the two words isn’t similar enough to make this likely to be a simple misspelling (note that 3 changes would have to be made to render “counselor” as “consoler”).

Googling “camp consoler” yielded almost 300 unique hits, pretty much all of which looked like this eggcornish usage to me. Similarly, googling “school consoler” yields over 300 unique hits, the vast majority being similarly eggcornish.

Again, I do think this may be an eggcorn in some cases; my one source of doubt is that “consoler” and “counselor” aren’t pronounced all that similarly, what with the accent being on a different syllable, etc. With this in mind, maybe it’s more likely to be an actual eggcorn in cases wherein people are writing it without ever actually pronouncing it. Does that make sense? Could it be true of some eggcorns?

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#2 2011-03-12 15:54:25

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

Re: "consoler" for "counselor"

Plausible.

I prefer eggcorns that are earcorns, but we have seen many eyecorns on this forum, and they have a legitimate claim to eggcorn status, I think.


Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.

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