Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
I encountered this one a day or two ago: “Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster is NOT an adequate conciliation prize”. Googling “conciliation prize” yields a lot of hits—about 13,300 (or at least that’s what it says on the first page of hits). Strange that a substitution (eggcorn?) with this many examples has apparently never been mentioned on the Eggcorn Forum before!
Here are some examples from the Google list:
“When the Bulls missed out on the summer of Lebron James, Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosh they signed Carlos Boozer as a conciliation prize.”
“Obama’s Nobel Prize NOTHING More than a Conciliation Prize for Losing the Olympics!!!”
“A conciliation prize will be awarded to the second place finisher.”
“Is the West Ham relegation some sort of conciliation prize for the Sheffield United fans?”
“The consolation prize is aggregate and in the event of a tie the conciliation prize will be split evenly among the tied players.” (Note the use of both words in the same sentence here! This was in the context of a list of bingo rules wherein “conciliation” for “consolation” was used several times, but that one “consolation” sneaked in there somehow!)
And here’s a hilarious one from a Youtube discussion. One guy says:
“If it’s any constellation, I’m greatly impressed.”
...and the other guy “corrects” him thusly:
“No offence but I think you might mean conciliation not constellation, I will tell you something that will be a conciliation prize to you…”
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The use of “constellation” for “consolation” in one of the above examples spurred me to look that one up here on Eggcorn Forum. It’s been discussed a couple of times, as “if it’s any constellation” and “constellation prize”. For instance:
http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/forum/view … p?pid=1558
http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/forum/view … hp?id=1672
FWIW, I think “conciliation” is a more eggcornish substitution for “consolation” than “constellation” is. The meaning seems a bit closer.
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Ha! I just found this one, in a restaurant review:
When our server asked about our meals , my brother said on a scale of 1 -10 , it was a 2. I said ,” The warm bread before the meal was better”. Our Concentration prize was FREE desert …
Her capitalizing “Concentration” makes me think that her confusion might be related to the awarding of consolation prizes to non-winners on the TV show “Concentration”, but I don’t remember if they had consolation prizes on that show.
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“Conciliation prize” is good.
We find examples of a substitution based on yet another Latin root: “condolation prize.” Also eggcorn, I think.
Ken called our attention earlier to the less explicable “consultation prize.”
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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There’s a good chance that conciliation prize be a Cupertino. (Dang subjunctive! Now I’m not even sure how to speak English any more.) Google offers it as correction for councilation. Consultation is suggested for counselation. Conselation invokes constellation.
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