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Chris -- 2018-04-11

#1 2011-04-30 06:27:40

JuanTwoThree
Eggcornista
From: Spain
Registered: 2009-08-15
Posts: 455

Psychophant

Nice reshaping. Sycophant, I have just discovered, means “showing the fig”, which is putting your thumb between the next two fingers. Unsurprisingly, ‘sykos’ also mean ‘vulva’ in Ancient Greek. But you might well ask how this means ‘slanderer and/or fawning adulator’. My Chambers is noncommittal but online theories include that it’s because you suck up to your patrons by making rude gestures to, or by slandering, their opponents. A far more robust theory is that by adopting a certain position bent over forwards women are being particularly subservient.

Be that as it may, misapplied logic has led 000s of people to the spelling “psychophant”, very few of them intentionally, I suspect. After all, hardly any words begin with “sycho”, though one is an inflammation of the hair follicles called “sychosis”.

PS You might easily misunderstand what your trichologist meant if you were told you were suffering from sychosis and needed your head examined.


On the plain in Spain where it mainly rains.

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#2 2011-04-30 09:39:59

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

Re: Psychophant

Thumbs up. (A thumb gesture that made its way into metaphor along more obvious paths).


Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.

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#3 2011-04-30 16:46:59

patschwieterman
Administrator
From: California
Registered: 2005-10-25
Posts: 1680

Re: Psychophant

This sounded familiar—it turns out Ken posted it back in 2005. But he included only a very brief write-up, so Juan’s updating is useful.

http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/forum/viewtopic.php?id=133

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