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#1 2011-06-22 22:58:50

burred
Eggcornista
From: Montreal
Registered: 2008-03-17
Posts: 1112

Letterate eggcorns

Individual letters can be at the business, or the receiving, end of an eggcorn transaction. Here are some hits I’m aware of from the forum (ok, some are only glancing blows):

Aself a steam
Bb-line << beeline
Csea section << c-section
PP-nut butter
Tteatotaller<<teetotaller

There are surely others.

QLanguageHat’s blog gets into the origin of the Q-tip.

They give the etymology of Q-tip as “the initial letter of QUALITY n. + TIP n.” and then add in small type: “The product was app. invented in 1923 by Leo Gerstenzang, a Polish-born American, who initially named them Baby Gays. In 1926 the name was changed to Q-tips Baby Gays, and later shortened to Q-tips.” I’ll bet they thank their lucky stars every day that Gerstenzang decided to change the name.

Thousands of hits see the Q-tip as a “cue-tip”, as if you were rooting in the cranial side pocket with a pool cue.

U — now that youtube, you can also hang a youturn.

News comment
To do a youturn that costs a persons life is dangerous driving causing death and the officer should be prosecuted

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#2 2011-09-14 16:29:47

David Bird
Eggcornista
From: The Hammer, Ontario
Registered: 2009-07-28
Posts: 1690

Re: Letterate eggcorns

A ... Back in my A Day ... instead of “heyday”
British schoolgirl, picture 4 of 366

F ... you f-feminate loser
Snippet from http://edwards2008.hi5.com/friend/group/153370
.
C.N.I. ... for seeing eye. In Canada the vision-impaired are helped by the nonprofit CNIB – the Canadian National Institute for the Blind. This may be a coincidence. There are, however, many apparently genuine hits for “C.N.I. dog”.

It’s great how u of t is accessible, but the first time there’s a cni dog in one of my classes it was barking in its sleep
Tweet snippet

Bender says “They’re my lucky shades. I stole them off some lucky guy while his lucky CNI dog was taking a wiz.”
Quoting Futurama

I bought the regular Iphone thinking it would have some sort of braille feature for people such as myself. My CNI dog is typing this for me.
Yahoo questions

When asked what breed of dog she had written on an info sheet the clerk in question stated “When I axed him he said “I don’t really knows, my dad be blind and we gots a CNI dog”, so thats what I wrote down.”......”CNI dog”
Job quote

I’ve heard people say ‘CNI dog’ instead of ‘seeing-eye dog’, ‘hip displeasure’ instead of ‘hip dysplasia’, and ‘ortopsy’ instead of ‘autopsy’. Thankfully, I don’t hear them often. How prevalent are these incorrect words where you are?
The Straight Dope

Don’t let the blind, lead the blind! Get a C.N.I. dog or something!
Blog tag

Edit: Another eggcorn on the reinforced F-feminate sort is “C-change”, from 2006.

Last edited by David Bird (2011-10-01 07:26:50)

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#3 2011-09-14 21:47:35

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

Re: Letterate eggcorns

We’ve discussed individual letters in these two cases:

D – “adore” lost its interior “d” in the middle ages and got it back in the Renaissance; amir >> admiral by way of “ad” hypercorrection

N – nadder >> adder and all the other n-droppers and n-losers

But you are looking for cases in which the letter says its own name, yes?

Last edited by kem (2011-09-14 21:48:07)


Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.

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#4 2011-09-15 03:45:16

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2713
Website

Re: Letterate eggcorns

Products manufacturing and supplying of snooker billiards pool table & accessories, snooker table mat, balls, q-stick …

***Olhausen 7ft. pool table & Accessories- […] The price includes, q sticks, bridge, q stick rack, block chalk, balls and rack. ...

It is, of course, pretty hard to be sure that people are not doing this kind of thing on purpose, as a shorthand / creative spelling technique. There is plenty of precedent for that.


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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#5 2011-12-16 12:03:05

burred
Eggcornista
From: Montreal
Registered: 2008-03-17
Posts: 1112

Re: Letterate eggcorns

L presents an L of a lot of opportunities from words borrowed from the Moors.

Tristan smiled softly as they came around a bed, to a little l-cove on the lake edge. “This is where all the big fish are.”
Group fan fic

One day someone must needs return to this cove. Alcove and cove do not have the same root, apparently, the one Arabic, the other proto High German, though that really strains one’s credulity.

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#6 2012-03-15 09:05:39

burred
Eggcornista
From: Montreal
Registered: 2008-03-17
Posts: 1112

Re: Letterate eggcorns

I should have remembered the el bone.

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#7 2012-11-15 23:17:07

David Bird
Eggcornista
From: The Hammer, Ontario
Registered: 2009-07-28
Posts: 1690

Re: Letterate eggcorns

X

Their love is unbreakable. That might sound some what romantic, but when you see the image of two young teens groping and “snogging”you begin to vomit. Let me just say no one knows this girl very well, but what we do know of her we do not like. Her X boyfriends call her a prude and a slut.
http://www.dstewsfml.blogspot.ca/

If I pray everyday will my x boyfriend come back?
http://www.ask.com/answers/16027501/ja- … =dir&jss=0

My boyfriend on whose forehead I have drawn a big X.

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#8 2012-11-21 23:36:43

Dixon Wragg
Eggcornista
From: Cotati, California
Registered: 2008-07-04
Posts: 1375

Re: Letterate eggcorns

David Bird quoted:

Her X boyfriends call her a prude and a slut.
http://www.dstewsfml.blogspot.ca/

These “X” boyfriends sound very confused.

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#9 2014-07-17 02:40:13

Dixon Wragg
Eggcornista
From: Cotati, California
Registered: 2008-07-04
Posts: 1375

Re: Letterate eggcorns

And speaking of “X” boyfriends, here’s the example I stumbled upon yesterday:

My X boyfriend has finished school and left for Saudi Arabia.
an ‘x’hibitionist’s story

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#10 2015-01-20 15:27:12

burred
Eggcornista
From: Montreal
Registered: 2008-03-17
Posts: 1112

Re: Letterate eggcorns

J

Origin of the term ‘J-walking’ in regards to crossing the street illegally.??? whether it is crossing against the light, in the middle of the block, or whatever. J-walking is against the law most places, but I am not interested in the legal definition. What does the ‘J’ mean??
Yahoo questions

Next week i’ll be fighting a J Walking ticket.
L.A. crackdown

In early XXc Kansas City, a jay was a rube, a hick, a bumpkin not wise to city ways, apt to wander out into traffic. The Word Stories blog provides a picture of the eggcornical J-walking version:

Some think that the origin of the word comes from the letter J which alludes to the shape of the route jaywalkers take when crossing the road.
Word Stories blog

Last edited by burred (2015-01-20 15:28:47)

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#11 2015-01-20 15:30:45

burred
Eggcornista
From: Montreal
Registered: 2008-03-17
Posts: 1112

Re: Letterate eggcorns

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#12 2015-07-17 07:49:54

David Bird
Eggcornista
From: The Hammer, Ontario
Registered: 2009-07-28
Posts: 1690

Re: Letterate eggcorns

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#13 2015-07-25 19:06:02

crispybacon
Member
From: Wellington, New Zealand
Registered: 2015-07-19
Posts: 24

Re: Letterate eggcorns

Poor Marc :(

S.A.
When I was at school, a lot of people thought that an essay was an S.A., or else they used the abbreviation as a shorthand.

Midnight Summers Dream SA help
hi guys, i found this forum online and i need to write an sa for my gcse soon on a character in a midnight summers dream, i have chooses bottom, i was hoping someone could read over it for me and tell me their thoughts?
Thx
http://www.online-literature.com/forums … am-SA-help

I could write an S.A. on here about how great Lucy is but I’ll just mention we do a lot of framing for her, amazingly talented local lass, up to all sorts of projects and exhibitions all over the world…
http://theframers.net/category/exhibitions/

“The teacher told us to write an SA, but I don’t know what SA stands for!” (joke)
http://www.wtmelon.com/a24Writer%27sWS.html

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#14 2015-09-20 06:05:50

David Bird
Eggcornista
From: The Hammer, Ontario
Registered: 2009-07-28
Posts: 1690

Re: Letterate eggcorns

The ngram shows that marijuana was first neck and neck with marihuana. Before that, there’s a good chance it was Chinese (see the following source). There are other folk etymological possibilities too.

The Spanish words mejorana or mayorana bear a significant phonetic resemblance to marijuana, which is almost certainly a ‘Hobson Jobson’ loan word from another language based on similarity of the sound to maria-juana. The name may also have been influenced by folk etymology, where the powers of various herbs are associated in Spanish American culture with the Virgin Mary, among them the psychoactive plant Salvia divinorum, known as ska Maria Pastora, ‘herb of Mary the Shepherdess’.
http://www.sino-platonic.org/complete/s … ijuana.pdf

“Ska” is herb? Makes sense. Here’s the first point of this post – a hidden letterate eggcorn for J, which I’m pretty sure stands for joint.

I always thought it was spelled marijuana with a ‘j’ as in Mary-Jane…you know…pass the J…
http://www.sootoday.com/content/news/de … sp?c=37414

The second point is just to displace the spam from the head of the forum. That’s just sad. Where is Godot?

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#15 2015-10-29 22:14:29

David Bird
Eggcornista
From: The Hammer, Ontario
Registered: 2009-07-28
Posts: 1690

Re: Letterate eggcorns

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#16 2015-10-29 22:40:52

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2713
Website

Re: Letterate eggcorns

David Bird wrote:

The ngram shows that marijuana was first neck and neck with marihuana. Before that, there’s a good chance it was Chinese (see the following source). There are other folk etymological possibilities too.

fwiw in Spanish marihuana seems to have always been very much more prevalent than marijuana , and mariguana a distant second but still far more common than marijuana . ( hu and gu are both very close to an English w sound; as far as I know they never clearly contrast, though they are slightly different in some people’s speech. ju is like the pre-aspirated English wh of those of us who distinguish e.g. which witch .)

Last edited by DavidTuggy (2015-10-29 22:43:44)


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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#17 2015-12-02 08:24:36

burred
Eggcornista
From: Montreal
Registered: 2008-03-17
Posts: 1112

Re: Letterate eggcorns

OP: So Oscar has UV Itis, poor man, he has had every illness possible… frown emoticon
Comments: UV Itis???
Reply: Allergic to the sun….he is going blind in one of his eyes…
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php? … 7966441913

Hello, My horse was recently diagnosed with U. V. Itis and I would like to find a mask he can wear all day everyday with the MOST UV protection available…
http://www.equisearch.com/resources/com … /aft/18080

Or is that uveitis, an inflammation of the uvea. The uvea would be something like the inner skin of a grape, if a grape had two skins. The ‘vascular tunic’ of the eye, which includes the iris. Horses with uveitis must shield their eyes from too much light.

Last edited by burred (2015-12-02 08:32:15)

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#18 2015-12-04 12:33:46

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

Re: Letterate eggcorns

UVitis. An almost perfect eggcorn. If only we were able to document its frequency. It seems likely that a number of those who write “uveitis” as “uvitis” (and there are: a large number) while still pronouncing it “yoÍžovēˈīdÉ™s” are actually seeing the anagram UV in the word.


Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.

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#19 2015-12-29 18:47:31

burred
Eggcornista
From: Montreal
Registered: 2008-03-17
Posts: 1112

Re: Letterate eggcorns

Uvitis as a spelling for uveitis is a good call, I think, Kem.

Here’s a complicated story.

Best moment on the morning flight from Seattle. Flight attendant is coming round offering drinks and taking breakfast orders. There’s something involving oats as one of the options and I didn’t catch what the other is. But first things first, it’s too early for champagne so I’m thinking spicey tomato juice.
“Are Mr and Mrs T aboard?” I ask.
She looks blank, scans her passenger manifest. “Do you mean Mr and Mrs Turner?”
“Um, no, the bloody mary mix.”
“Right.” She looks at me. “Will you be having AKCD ya?”
WTF? My turn to be blank. Usually my subconscious comes to the rescue with difficult words, but this time it’s holding up a white flag.
“Ah, could you say that again, please?”
“Would you like A K C D yeah?” She spells it out slowly for the idiot forrener.
Nope. This must be some code. The universe is getting back at me for torturing my FB friends with AFF and FT jargon.
http://www.bookcrossing.com/forum/5/492927/7913133

He finally spells it quesidilla.

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#20 2016-02-23 10:53:08

burred
Eggcornista
From: Montreal
Registered: 2008-03-17
Posts: 1112

Re: Letterate eggcorns

C

I just ran across this old post on the forum where a sea change was understood as a reemphasized capital C-Change.

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#21 2016-08-05 10:07:47

Peter Forster
Eggcornista
From: UK
Registered: 2006-09-06
Posts: 1222

Re: Letterate eggcorns

G

“Until I was 32 I believed that a G spot was a ‘gee spot,’ that perfect rhetorical space where people say, ‘Gee, that was great!’” admits Heinrichs, author of “Thank You for Arguing: What Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion” (Three Rivers Press). “I finally looked up the real meaning after a disastrous presentation to administrators at an Ivy League university. ‘Here’s how to find the alumni gee spot,’ I’d instructed the distinguished group. I think I’d also said something about ‘stimulating’ alumni engagement. Titters, red faces, awkward silence when I finished.”

After three changes of ISP I seem to be able to access the forum again, so bunged this in what seemed the most appropriate thread. What gems there are in here – I’ve been back to look at those cakes a dozen times already. The G string, just out of interest, was originally “geestring” and may have made the change under the influence of the violin’s thickest string. I like to know these things.

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#22 2016-08-05 13:56:32

Dixon Wragg
Eggcornista
From: Cotati, California
Registered: 2008-07-04
Posts: 1375

Re: Letterate eggcorns

For those of you who liked the cake picture in comment #12 on this thread, here are two dozen similar cake decoration fails, including at least one eggcorn that has been discussed here (“valid Victorian” for “valedictorian”).

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#23 2018-12-11 15:04:26

David Bird
Eggcornista
From: The Hammer, Ontario
Registered: 2009-07-28
Posts: 1690

Re: Letterate eggcorns

Marc’s friend Stephen.

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#24 2018-12-11 15:24:14

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2713
Website

Re: Letterate eggcorns

I suppose the 80-D could fit in the A section.


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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#25 2018-12-11 22:11:00

David Bird
Eggcornista
From: The Hammer, Ontario
Registered: 2009-07-28
Posts: 1690

Re: Letterate eggcorns

Def. There was a simbling, in the uniquecorns, somewhere, for 80-HD. Perfect consonance. Aha, here. But nothing beats hearing it first person.

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