Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
You are not logged in.
Registrations are currently closed because of a technical problem. Please send email to
The forum administrator reserves the right to request users to plausibly demonstrate that they are real people with an interest in the topic of eggcorns. Otherwise they may be removed with no further justification. Likewise, accounts that have not been used for posting may be removed.
Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
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.â€
“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 underâ€, a (creative!) re-analysis of “torn asunder†... to get around the ambiguity of “asunderâ€, meaning “into various piecesâ€.
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 feudsâ€
Web forum comment: “i just don’t know what to believe anymore. its like my whole world is being torn ass under .â€
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.â€
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
Offline
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 nothingâ€. Many such usages are accordingly suspect of being purposeful puns.
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2013-03-07 22:04:57)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
Offline
In the Eggcorn Database Chris calls adieu >> ado “an excellent eggcorn.” I’m not sure why. Like you, I think the semantic fields are fairly divergent.
Last edited by kem (2013-10-11 00:10:10)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
Offline
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* .
Offline
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 22:10:02)
Offline
I just stumbled upon this in an online comment thread:
Obama’s so called talk with Iran has been made into ” a LOT TO DO ABOUT NOTHING”...
“To do” (as well as “to-do”) for “ado” is listed in the Eggcorn Database, but doesn’t seem to have been specifically mentioned in the Forum, so I thought I’d add this variation to this thread.
Offline
Re: “ass under”—
From Dictionary of American Slang, 3rd ed. (1995) by Robert L. Chapman:
ass over tincups (or teacups or teakettle) adv phr In or into helplessness; head over heels: “She’s so beautiful she’ll knock you ass over tincups” [ a variant of the early-20th-century British arse over tip, “head over heels”]
Partridge & Beale’s A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, 8th ed. (1984) gives the following variants:
arse over ballocks, ... kettle, ... tip, ... tit(s), ... tock, ... tuck, ... turkey, A over T, ack over toc(k), & ... over top.
The above variants give the topsy-turvy image by locating the ass, which is usually under, over something that is usually above it. “Ass under” for “asunder” turns this image ass over teakettle; ass under is, after all, the normal, not topsy-turvy state of things. So people’s understanding “ass under” as if it were “ass over…” is perhaps an example of a poorly thought out (in fact, presumably unconscious) interpretation which assumes from the context a meaning that is in fact the opposite of the image given by the words. If so, it may be the same process that gives us “I could care less” when the intended meaning is really “I couldn’t care less”.
Offline