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
Just spotted in a Twitter quoted in the Daily Mail and there are enough ghits for this to be beyond any doubt, if you ask me:
Police have cornered off Kensington Road following a fire at a property
The semantics are, for me, that it’s a combination of “cornered” in its sense of “trapped” and the mental picture of the police barriers tending to be at street corners.York City Police have cornered off the sidewalk at Penn and Market Streets
Unless some spoilsport pops up to say that this was documented in 2009, 2010 and then again three times in 2011 it’s the first decent find I’ve had for ages.
On the plain in Spain where it mainly rains.
Offline
Great eggcorn! I won’t be the one to drudge something up from hours of rutting in some sleepy back-corner of the eggcorn catacombs. Cornered off does look suspiciously like a retooling of cordoned off.
Offline
Offline
Only a few examples on the web:
Aquatic plant forum: “what are you going to grow in the cartoned off section?â€
Post on a dog forum: “You need to carton off part of the house for the cat so that he has his own space.â€
Web fiction: “Now the area was cartoned off for an infectious disease team to investigate the mysterious retrovirus that infected the men and women.â€
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
Offline
Good one. I see that a number of people also think that things lugged away can be cartoned off rather than carted off, as if they’ve been boxed up for transport.
Here’s another I think is a simbling.
As of midnight, police quartered off the area so that they can apprehend the shooter.
TV news
Last edited by burred (2014-11-05 14:30:58)
Offline
Since cord and cordon are etymologically related, not sure if this counts:
“It was like a scene from a movie, as the SDPD corded off the area with yellow plastic tape…” San Diego Free Press
“Yes Josh, I’m down here as close as possible to the crime scene, where FBI profilers have corded off the area” (warning: book typeset in Comic Sans”.)
Offline
Squeezed? Boxed? Folded?
The paper shredder guy just came in and said Dewey Square is now cordioned off by barricades
Riot police soon cordioned off the area
My recollection was that Bush had protesters cordioned off well away
On the plain in Spain where it mainly rains.
Offline
Squeeze-boxed.
I recall that that plane dove some 20 feet into the ground and was soon accordioned off from spectators as the military came in.
http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/t … 1053906092
Offline
Yet another variation, of which I found about a dozen examples:
Police corned off the canal in briar hill
Facebook post
This is the Kangaroo Flat house on High Street police corned off after a 16 month old baby boy was taken to hospital…
Twicsy, whatever that is
Police corned off road w/ police tape in Turnpike Lane too.
breaking news
But probably not an eggcorn, as I can’t imagine a meaning connection.
Offline