Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2011-03-08
Spotted today in an email to a language teaching list. Google throws up quite a few examples too.
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Let me suggest the obvious extension.
On an optional basis we are organizing a breath taking a guided trip of the Grand Harbour pointing out all the crooks and grannies.
Tour of Malta
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crooks and nannies, too (though that’s probably mostly a spoonerism.)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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Crooks looks like it could be a squash between cracks and nooks, with the felicitous connection to the crook of an arm.
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Here’s where it was spotted: Someone (I think American) talking about cleaning all the dust out of computers before the weather gets really hot and humid. It was on an email list for English language teachers.
[quote]
Just turn the machine off, unplug it, unscrew a couple screws on the back and pop/slide off an access panel. Use the straw that comes with the canned air to get into the crooks and crannies. Be sure to give any of the little fans you see a good shot and make sure their screens are clean and can provide lots of ventilation for the coming hot and humid months.
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David Bird wrote:
Crooks looks like it could be a squash between cracks and nooks, with the felicitous connection to the crook of an arm.
The “crook in the arm”/”crooked finger”/”shepherd’s crook”/”crooked road* source would seem more obvious and likely though. In that case the crush might well be felicitous.
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I not only believe in this eggcorn, I think I may have uttered it. “Crooks and crannies,” though obviously misshapen on deeper consideration, sounds right to me.
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So, is it in or out of the database?
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The link between the Eggcorn Forum and the Eggcorn Database has been tenuous in recent years—not very many of the eggcorns found by the Forum, even the best ones, cross over to the Database.
At the end of each year we try to compile a list of the best Eggcorn Forum entries. Here, for example, was our “best of 2010” discussion. You might look at the posts just after the first of the year and see what the regulars to the Forum think about “crooks and crannies.”
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I see. Thank you for that – will do.
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