Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
Years ago when we were both in school, I was discussing with my sister the status of my major, endocrinology, as a”real” scientific endeavor, compared to hers, psychology, which I characterized as a pseudoscience (not that I believe this, just using it as a means of baiting her). As she tried to rebut what I was saying about psych, I loftily informed her that she was “living in a fool’s paradigm,” well aware that she would recognize the misquotation, which she did. My question is whether this qualifies as a true eggcorn, or some other category, such as a malapropism. Also, “paradigm” has been so widely disseminated since the introduction of the idea of paradigm shifts, I find it hard to imagine that no one else has used this either mistakenly or as a jape, as I had intended it when I tossed it at my sister. Has anyone else examples?
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The example you cite is a pun, and thus cannot be an eggcorn. Puns are consciously made by people who know that the word they’re using is not the standard usage. For it to be an eggcorn, the perp would have to really believe that “fool’s paradigm” is the proper term. Whether the pronunciation in this case is similar enough to engender such confusion is debatable, as is the issue of whether there’s a plausible meaning-connection, which is also a requirement for eggcornicity (in other words, the phrase must make some sort of sense, else how could the perp believe it’s the proper phrase?).
I have not seen other examples of this one, but a web search might yield a few, though it’s often hard if not impossible to distinguish puns or other substitutions (such as typos or computer auto-corrections) from real eggcorns. Confessions from perps are the gold standard, but they’re hard to come by, though most of us here have made some.
BTW, welcome, Hoffnung!
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