Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
This may not sound scary to you, but I will admit, this scenario was daunting to me. Alas, I succeeded, and my confidence was boosted.
blog
I decided to go to Albertson’s to get exactly what I wanted and alas, I succeeded with no problem.
restaurant review
I had no idea what it would turn into! But alas, I succeeded and everyone was happy.
cooking blog
These are just a few examples of people’s using “alas” in a positive context, which makes no sense to me. I assume they may be confusing it with “at last”, or maybe assuming it’s a sort of interjection, kind of like “Presto!” or something. Not sure there’s a real eggcornish meaning-confusion, but it’s an interesting (to me, anyway) substitution.
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I have a couple of fairly clear cases where alas pretty much has to at least come close to meaning at last :
Dear parents and students, ¶ Alas I’m getting this letter out to you! ¶ We are looking forward to our upcoming FES Classroom Experience
Three miles in all that dirt? You will not be fit to be seen.†¶ “I shall be very fit to see Jane, which is all I want.†¶ Alas, I was given permission to go. Kitty and Lydia, who were going to visit the officers, walked me as far as Meryton
Other cases seemed to me to be substitutions for Lo! (which has a bunch of other odd variants):
Only free, divine self-disclosure promises genuine comprehension of God. But, alas, just this has happened.
At least he’d never seen it before. So just out of curiosity, he entered this sod house. ¶ “Who is in this house?†he wondered. Alas and behold an old lady sat on her woven grass seat weaving a long piece of rope out of sinew.
This one seems to mean “howeverâ€, or perhaps “fortunatelyâ€:
Young ladies were not supposed to read newspapers beside the society pages, alas, neither Mr. Bennet nor Mr. Gardiner found this particular rule of propriety a sensible one.
Either of these latter meanings might explain the examples you cite as well as the “at last†meaning.
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2015-05-02 18:17:37)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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Another curious and surprising common variant is atlas:
I agree about how awesome it would be to be a werewolf in real life but atlas it’s impossible.
And as a substitute for at least:
The Bibimbap here doesn’t come with a raw egg on top, which was a disappointment for me but atlas it was still delicious.
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Further variants include alatch and alash and a lass – I’d half hoped for a milkmaid-like manifestation with the latter but alas, no butter lass. One which does have possible eggcornish interpretations is alias:
I wish it were only sensible people leaving California to come here to Colorado but alias the same people that screwed up California are …
I try to discourage egg laying behavior myself but alias, I am not very successful most of the time.
Their were 4 or 5 spots that had visible iron and from my first dig I was assuming it was loaded with iron, but alias it was wishful thinking.
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I don’t see how “alias” could be an eggcorn for “alas” due to the substantial difference in pronunciation, except that it might be an eyecorn (i.e., for those who are writing rather than pronouncing).
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Dixon – I agree. And of course it is conceivable – just – that a listener may not have heard alas spoken aloud; I know no-one who would employ it in everyday speech except perhaps in a theatrical, mock-declamatory manner. But alias in place of but alas works quite well as ‘but, on the other hand’ or ‘however’.
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