Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
This showed up on my Facebook wall (a post from a friend): “Where or where have my headrests gone?”
Googling “where or where” yields 560 unique hits, the vast majority of which are the eggcornish-seeming usage (replacing “where oh where”). This one appears to be brand new to the Eggcorn Forum, and I think it’s a real eggcorn, or something like it.
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I agree, Dixon. In this case it seems like the semantics of “or” might intrude.
“Or” for “oh” is probably quite common. Here it is with “oh dear:”
Ford car forum: “ Or dear me thats horrible.â€
Sri Lanka forum: “ Or dear me ! Just noticedâ€
Telephone call abuse/information forum: “ Or Dear me I don’t wanna go to jail!!! â€
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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So, it looks like in the cases you cite, kem, that “or” for “oh” is just a non-eggcornish sound confusion. That may very well be true in most, maybe all, cases. Googling “or say can you see” found (only) 2 similar cases:
(from a rap song) “Whoaahh, well alright, again I say or say can you see
The puppeteer pull the strings of you and me from the White House”
(from a discussion of Christina Aguilera’s botched performance of the national anthem) “00:13:03 If it’s that simple, just give me the first verse.
00:13:09 >> Or say can you see—>> o say.”
I still think that some uses of “where or where” for “where oh where” could be eggcorns, considering that “where or where” could mean “this location or this location or…”—thus there’s a plausible meaning-connection.
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