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Chris -- 2018-04-11
I stumbled on “delate” as a substitution for “delete” on the ‘Net, My subsequent Google search for examples of the eggcorn educated me to the fact that there is such a word as delate, though it’s not often used nowadays:
1. (Law) (formerly) to bring a charge against; denounce; impeach
2. (Law) Rare to report (an offence, etc.)
( http://www.thefreedictionary.com/delate )
My Google sampling method indicates at least 20 or so examples of “delate” for “delete”, e.g.:
Hello I wanted to modify my CM 7.2 with delating some apk’s from system to make my rom very light. I delated a lot of processes by myself but i’m not sure with some of them.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthr … ?t=1497601
Can you permenmtly delate show from iTunes not just hide them?
http://www.justanswer.com/mac-computers … -them.html
Twitter have delate all my date’s and friends.
http://www.enriqueiglesias.com/profiles … %3A6788240
So wait what is going to happen to this blog and her other blog are you going to delate them?
http://babygirls-best-daddy.tumblr.com/
It seems like a definite eggcorn to me. We refer to someone or something that’s defunct as “the late __”, so deleting something could easily be seen as making them “the late”, and it’s a short hop thence to “delate”.
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This strikes me as an eggcornish analysis that reflects more the ingenuity of the analyst than the probable thought processes of the perpetrators. I’d like some kind of clear indication some of them are thinking of it that way. Still, there are indeed many examples —lots more than “20 or soâ€â€”, which ups the chances that some one or more of them may be doing so.
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Are there examples of delate << delay out there? That would make more sense to me. delate << delayed is there, though it may be more a blend of delayed with late than an eggcorn (not that they’re mutually exclusive of course):
After some delate flights, deicing the plane twice in t.o, layover in japan we made it in 2 chaing mai
We also havean affordable private transpot in the case of last arrival or delate flights when no shutle bus possible.
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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DavidTuggy wrote:
This strikes me as an eggcornish analysis that reflects more the ingenuity of the analyst than the probable thought processes of the perpetrators. I’d like some kind of clear indication some of them are thinking of it that way. Still, there are indeed many examples —lots more than “20 or soâ€â€”, which ups the chances that some one or more of them may be doing so.
As you know, David, clear indications of eggcornish thought processes are hard to come by—but that hasn’t stopped the Eggcorn Database from accumulating hundreds of presumptive eggcorns, often based on speculation even more tenuous than mine about the presumed underlying thought process. Re: the plausibility of my explanation—we will have to agree to disagree, absent the (unlikely) eventuality of someone presenting us with said “clear indication”. Just another day on Eggcorn Planet.
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