Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2011-03-08
From an Internet discussion about an item someone had been trying to sell: “petty nobody wanted it , his/her loss.” “Petty” for “pity” is, I think, new to the Eggcorn Forum. Googling “It’s a petty” yielded 490 purportedly unique hits, of which about two dozen, by my sampling/estimate, are this eggcorn, for instance:
Then we have to deal with one of these republicans who won’t get anything done. It’s a petty really.
In my world it’s a petty when a good idea goes to waste without getting to test a part of the actual idea out.
It’s a petty that no loops can be save by any digital mean, so once it’s gone… it’s gone.
I think the pronunciation of “petty” is similar enough to that of “pity” for it to be an eggcorn, but different enough to make a mere misspelling less likely. The only meaning connection I can figure out is the negative connotation of both words, with a sense of diminution in both cases.
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