Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2011-03-08
In a Linguistic Mystic blog post from a couple of years ago are two eggcorns that we have not discussed here. One is the transformation of “ado” into “a due.” The web examples of “much a due” are salted with pregnancy puns, but several citations look like they may be standardized confusions. One of them:
Blog entry: “ The press made much a due about the delay and how the victim must be lying or she would have told her tale immediately.”
“A due” for “ado” seems to focus on the inevitability of the commotion.
A second eggcorn in the Linguistic Mystic blog is described this way:
Google gives 216 hits for “Torn ass under”, a (creative!) re-analysis of “torn asunder” ... to get around the ambiguity of “asunder”, meaning “into various pieces”.
Two instances of this slip from the web:
Web essay in Marxism archive: “The severe Monotheism of Mohammad not only echoed the yarning for unity on the part of a people torn ass under by Internecine feuds”
Web forum comment: “i just don’t know what to believe anymore. its like my whole world is being torn ass under .”
Hard to know, though, whether or not the web examples are puns. Many obviously are, but some, like the two above, have no context that would suggest awareness of a pun.
David B, by the way, noted in 2008 the substitution of “us under” for “asunder.”
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There’s also adieu < ado :
Will the sequester turn out to be much adieu about nothing?
[this] issue [...] which the Democrates make much adieu about presumes …
The stories are fun, but the prayer is what we need. So without further adieu (sp?), let me [...]
A rather prominent self-confessed perpetrator was (the linguist) Dan Everett.
I don’t see a very clear connection in most contexts between the meanings ‘goodbye(s)’ and ‘commotion’, so it’s not a great eggcorn, but it’s not impossible to construe, and in some contexts it becomes rather funny, e.g. when an overdone farewell is described as “much adieu about nothing”. Many such usages are accordingly suspect of being purposeful puns.
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2013-03-07 23:04:57)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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In the Eggcorn Database Chris calls adieu >> ado “an excellent eggcorn.” I’m not sure why. Like you, I think the two semantic fields are fairly divergent.
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Round-tripping (from a 2012 year-end letter, reported by a friend):
It is time to bid you ado, hoping that your Christmas was the best and that you are looking forward to the New Year.
Plenty more on the Internet, e.g.:
Obviously these disgruntled campers/fishers won’t be back so bid them ado , continue to smile, welcome your next guests, and continue to live
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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Might as well go for the complete set. Where due and dew are pronounced like do, they make accessible and interesting alternative images.
The much hyped “W” by Oliver Stone with an expenditure of $25,000,000.00, literally proved to be a tank this past opening weekend. After much a dew about nothing it is recording weekend sales of give or take $10,000,000.00.
Pol blog
Torn ass under. Priceless.
Last edited by David Bird (2013-03-26 23:10:02)
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