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
Ngram analyses tend to show that acorn and eggcorn are often born at roughly the same time, as surmised by Mark Liberman (anyone have the link?). I wonder if something similar is not happening today with the phrases crowd sourcing and cloud sourcing. The coinage crowdsourcing is due to writer Jeff Howe of Wired magazine, in the article The Rise of Crowdsourcing, from June 2006. Crowd sourcing involves an open call to a large undefined group of people for help with a problem that would usually be solved by you or your own company. Cloud computing, perhaps not coincidentally, was also a hot buzzphrase in 2006-2007. Cloud computing refers to the use of computer services over a network rather than based your own machine. Cloud sourcing, as a conscious or unconscious blend of the two, is now being bruited about widely. Here is a reference to cloud sourcing that is not different from a crowd source: http://kayhebbourn.hubpages.com/hub/Clo … eek-to-Me. It is possible that the original minting of crowdsourcing was already influenced by cloud computing, which would have been part of the wired buzzome at the time (ngram).
Offline
“Cloudsourcing” may be (and is defined to be by some internet sources) a blend of “cloud computing” and “outsourcing.” Refers to switching a provider of certain software resources to a cloud-based contractor.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
Offline
Both crowd and cloudsourcing are legit and distinct and there is no eggcornery here, if I understand you. I think you’re largely right, but there is considerable room for confusion.
The Dragon Lords, world’s first ‘cloud-sourced’ novel, prepares to land
Silvia Hartmann’s latest work was written on an open Google Drive document, with 13,000 collaborators offering critiques and even providing a title
http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksb … a-hartmann
If there is a distinction, it is that “cloud” sourcing refers to the use of remote resources hosted on the web rather than on one’s own computer, whereas “crowd” sourcing refers to collaborative projects that receive input from a nebulous gang of enthusiasts on the web. When the world’s first cloud-sourced novel refers to input from the cloud, skies are grey over Eggcornistan.
Offline
A couple of theoretically distinguishable terms are exchanging DNA like mad.
We haven’t seen the sun in Eggcornistan since 2005.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
Offline