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#1 2010-07-09 12:21:43

jorkel
Eggcornista
Registered: 2006-08-08
Posts: 1456

UNREQUIRED love (unrequited)

Google hits on July 9, 2010
1,030,000 “Unrequited love”
8,170 “Unrequired love”
Analysis by Joe Krozel

“Unrequited love” is a highly in-the-language usage meaning unreciprocated love. Outside that usage, most people probably rarely use “unrequited” and perhaps that leads some to mistake it for “unrequired” when hearing it. However, the mistaken usage of the latter for the former (possibly as an eggcorn) is fraught with a divergence of meaning … effectively replacing unreciprocated with unnecessary. (We’ve had disagreements on this forum about whether gross distortions of meaning can really qualify as eggcorns. Nevertheless, I’ll put it forward and we’ll look for advocacy of either pro or con positions).

Given that backdrop, let’s jump to the reshaping “unrequired love.” I think the best articulation of the usage can be drawn from the first example below which poses the question, “Are there any easy ways to stop yourself from loving someone?” The implication here is that there is some sort of crush involved. I would just toss out the notion that a crush may be one scenario which involves both “unrequited love” and the “unrequired love” just defined. And that may be the strongest case for an eggcorn.

I’ll also point out the third example which poses the question, “Did an unrequired love ever reciprocate?” which strongly suggests that the meaning of “unrequited” was intended … but doesn’t explicitly explain why the love was “unrequired.”

There may be other scenarios, but I’ll stop with this one and see what others have to say. Finally, I’ll acknowledge that a certain number of cases will be due to typographical error or spellchecker error (Cupertino effect). For instance, I’m not convinced that the bottom example is anything other than a typo..

Examples:
Unrequired love Unrequired love. Are there any easy ways to stop yourself from loving someone? – Asked by copperredhead, A Thinker, Female, 36-45, Artist / Musician / ...
https://answerology.com/index…/192813 … love.html Cached

Interrupting Cow: Unrequired LoveAug 2, 2005 … I mean, I had unrequired love for four out of five New Kids on the Block at one point or another and that was enough for me. ...
interruptingcowmoo.blogspot.com/.../unrequired-love.html – Cached – Similar

Did your unrequited love suddenly reciprocate? [Archive …9 posts – 8 authors – Last post: Jun 25, 2005
JThunder. 06-25-2005, 11:55 AM. Did an unrequired love ever reciprocate? In my case, never. :(. vBulletin® v3.7.3, Copyright ©2000-2010, ...
boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-322650.html – Cached

Is brokeback mountain a good sad love movie? – Yahoo! AnswersMar 11, 2008 … It’s great entertainement and soooo sad cause unrequired love is, no matter if you’re gay or straight. 2 years ago. 0% 0 Votes …
answers.yahoo.com › Entertainment & Music › Movies – Cached – Similar

DPRP : Counting Out Time : Porcupine Tree – Stupid DreamI mean, it’s an unrequired love song. It’s a love song with somebody who’s obsessed with someone else, but none of that affection is returned. ...
www.dprp.net/proghistory/index.php?i=1999_01 – Cached – Similar

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#2 2010-07-09 13:27:47

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2712
Website

Re: UNREQUIRED love (unrequited)

In a situation of unrequited love, A loves B but B doesn’t love A. It is very often, probably almost always, the case that B would actually prefer that A not love him/her; only rarely would B want A to do so. In this sense A’s love for B is unrequired = unwanted by B. Makes perfect eggcorny sense to me.
.
Note that r for t is a very easy qwerty typo: just don’t stretch quite far enough with the index finger of your left hand.


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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#3 2010-07-10 17:20:46

David Bird
Eggcornista
From: The Hammer, Ontario
Registered: 2009-07-28
Posts: 1690

Re: UNREQUIRED love (unrequited)

Splendid eggcorn, I love it. It fits the pattern of simplification of the imagery of a recondite word. Very widespread. I convinced myself that its not a typo a least part of the time by looking through the many hits. Here’s a pretty stark case:

Anime fan forum
With the love trianle and unrequired love talk, can I just say unrequired love is a popular story twist in Japan, since watching animes since I was a baby (thanks to the influence of my dad _) I’ve seen many unrequired love stories in manga/anime

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#4 2010-07-10 20:09:39

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2712
Website

Re: UNREQUIRED love (unrequited)

This would work especially well for those whose English has a flapped r sound. This would include some Asian Englishes. [ɾiˈkʷaʲɾəd] could be spelled either way for at least some such dialects. Nevertheless, the phrase may never have been heard spoken out loud by some of these people.


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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#5 2011-03-23 18:11:43

David Bird
Eggcornista
From: The Hammer, Ontario
Registered: 2009-07-28
Posts: 1690

Re: UNREQUIRED love (unrequited)

Stumbled upon today, a disquietingly common phenomenon of unrequieted love. There are hundreds of hits. There’s even some unrequieted self-love, which provides food for thought.

Boudoir heartbreak
I didn’t know if Sonja and Daniel were together, or if she had been telling the truth, and despite her best intentions, Sonja had just been sojourning on in nothing more than unrequieted love.

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#6 2011-03-23 19:29:10

burred
Eggcornista
From: Montreal
Registered: 2008-03-17
Posts: 1112

Re: UNREQUIRED love (unrequited)

Here’s the eggcorn Google offered me when I looked for the googlenope unrechoired love: unrecruited love. It’s a bit of a phonetic leap, but surprisingly common (more than 50 real hits I think). The first hit suggests that “unrecruited love” occurs when the object of your affection won’t be won over to your cause.

First person account, song interpretation
When I listen to the original version I get the feeling that it is just another song about unrecruited love. A loved one has walked out the door and now the other person wants him/her back.

Love hurts
ok so i already have my story circling about my unrecruited love to my ex and how my father kicked me out

Be honest
It may seem cruel but unrecruited love is crueler.

Psychology of love and Harry Potter
So you can like a guy who doesn’t like you? Okay. Yes, I can – it’s called unrecruited love, and I’m sure I’m not the only person in the world who can do that.

Edit: Looking back on this one, it seems likely that “unrecruited” is very likely to be a cupertino for “unrecuited”.

Last edited by burred (2011-11-26 20:54:58)

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