Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
Spotted in the wild:
“The fact remains that US foreign policy has never had continuity or an end game plan. Our political system swings like a penguin and as such so does our foreign policy … ”
Okay, maybe not an eggcorn, but still fun. I tried to give the poster the benefit of the doubt, but no matter how badly I spelled pendulum, autocorrect never suggested penguin.
On On,
Paul Woodford
Paul’s Thing
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Hmmm…maybe the perp was influenced by the Frank Zappa song Penguin in Bondage?
Or maybe not.
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Our political system swings like a penguin…
Makes perfect sense when you watch that wobbling waddle, or wabbling woddle. An inverted pendulum is what it is:
The next step was to test the birds on a trackway that measured the force of each movement they made. “We found they are inefficient because of their short legs and big feet, and waddling is a means to cut their losses.”
One was required to think of the waddling penguin as an inverted pendulum, the scientists said. At the end of each swing, when the penguin was for an instant still, the energy of the side to side motion was stored as potential energy. On the return swing, this was converted to energy of motion that peaked as the penguin rocked through the vertical.
All animals recovered some energy with each step. But waddling penguins turned out to be the big winners. They got up to 80% of their energy of motion back with each swing. This was the highest of any terrestrial animal. Humans got about 65% back with each step.
There are entries for pengulum, but if we allow a change of vowel, pingulum can bring some chiming imagery into play:
CLOCK RIDGEWAY GRANDFATHER CLOCK, MISSING PINGULUM & WEIGHTS, 22” X 12” X 82”, NO KEY
... original finish i woond clock up and started the pingulum it seemd to work fine there but missing a hour hand and not sure if keeping time may …
Well, okay, ‘ping’ sounds more like the chime of a very bonsai fairy timepiece, but there does seem to be something there. (Incidentally, the informal Welsh word for a microwave oven is popty ping.)
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