Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
I saw this and thought “What on earth does that mean? Some sort of place?†No, it’s an eggcorn for “tabula rasaâ€. See the discussion on Wikipedia. Note that it will probably be archived in the next few days and moved off of this page.
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James: Could you please expound on the imagery of “top of the rosa?” According to the WIkipedia article you cite: “Characteristic of the eggcorn, and its chief difference from malapropism, is that the new phrase makes sense on some level.” I can’t make contextual sense of it.
Last edited by jorkel (2006-09-20 12:39:12)
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Jerkel’s quote is just a somewhat badly-worded explanation of an eggcorn and has nothing to do with the actual eggcorn.
The only actual use of it as an eggcorn is the one that is linked to in the first topic; the rest of the listings on Google actually make sense in the context—“top of the Rosa Chair”, “top of the Rosa [mountain/Pinnacle]”, etc.
I’ve never heard this myself, personally, and it doesn’t seem to much qualify as an eggcorn either, since “top of the Rosa” doesn’t make terribly much sense when used instead of “tabula rasa”... it doesn’t make much sense even if we assume that the speaker knows about “sub rosa” and assumes “top of the rosa” means the opposite thing.
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James’ link did mention:
“top of the rosa” meaning a new start/a fresh start.
What is the full interpretation of this imagery? Here’s my best guess:
“Top of” implies a start, and “rosa” alludes to the freshness of a rose.
Whence, “a fresh start.” (Or is that a bit of a stretch?)
I might also add that “tabula rasa”—taken to mean “a clean slate”—would certainly allow “a fresh start.” Hence, the two terms would have very close usages. So, in my mind, the mis-hearing of the original would certainly qualify as an eggcorn.
Last edited by jorkel (2006-09-22 10:33:53)
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