Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
‘heave a sign of relief’ is surprisingly common (687 ghits) and far more so as ‘heaved a sign of relief’ (3,660 ghits).
Genetic engineers create a human being with extra large hands and 15 fingers, Palmtop developers heave a sign of relief, and add yet more unnecessary …
www.photostuff.co.uk/rr1.htm – 7k –
... committed to the preservation of a divided Germany, and thus privately heaved a sign of relief when the Wall stopped the tension over the emigration. ...
www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=13110869835892 – 25k –
I feel this is more than a typo as it seems to be related to the expression ‘no sign of relief’ and resolves that unhappy state -particularly as heaved/hove has a nautical sense as in heaving into sight, over the horizon.
Although… I have just checked ‘bridge of signs’ – ... da Ponte ordered the construction of the New Prisons, built by Antonio Contin around 1600 and linked to the palace itself by the Bridge of Signs. ...
www.italytraveller.com/en/r/venice/c/pa … e-s-palace – 19k
and conclude that I may be in that state of self-delusion Pat mentioned. Now the size of my sighs are a sign that I am resigned to continue failing to nail an eggcorn…
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Weird. Some people may very well have meant to type “sign of relief.” But I also note that “h” and “n” are right next to each other on the keyboard; I never learned how to type properly, but I use the same finger for both of them. I doubt that explains all of these, but may take care of a few of them.
Peter—I deleted that duplicate post.
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I just looked this one up because I just HEARD the expression “breathed a sign of relief” used in a Chinese English-language news report… so at least one person out there used it not as a typo. There are plenty of “breathed a sign of relief’s” on the net also, but of course they could be typos.
Last edited by Craig C Clarke (2009-03-11 01:54:54)
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An idiom blend may be at work in this eggcorn. “No sign of relief” may not be in the idiom dictionaries yet, but it probably should be.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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Mark Liberman discussed this reshaping at length in an April Language Log post, and ended the essay with an interesting question:
We usually think of eggcorns as starting with the perceptual re-interpretation of an expression that is acoustically ambiguous, like “reign in” for “rein in” or “feeble position” for “fetal position”. Is it possible that this one involves re-interpretation of a natural typing error?
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3082
Last edited by patschwieterman (2011-06-27 03:10:51)
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A typo error as the origin of this one seems quite likely, along with a certain number stemming from an idiom blend. I liked Chris B. Behrens assessment from the LanguageLog comments, that this one breaks the logic camel’s back, however. On the other hand, the Logic Camel has got to have a flexible backbone around here at the best of times.
The typo goes the other way, of course, giving birth to some interesting new ways of expressing exasperation, or a ‘sigh of life’.
Title: “A generation desiring a sighâ€
Still we want a sigh from God. His word is not enough.
Sermon
Maybe it’s a sigh from god! ... He does not want you going in there just to masturbate anymore! :)
No shower pressure
“It is a sigh of the timesâ€, said San Diego travel expert Mary Clark, who has been tracking hotel occupancy rates and travel trends in Southern California hotels for the past 5 years.
Hotel occupancy rates down
Lots and lots of “stop sigh”s out there, along with other unlikely substitutions you might dream up.
Last edited by David Bird (2011-06-27 20:18:05)
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