Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been getting a steady stream of Google Alerts about new web pages with “eggcorn” in them. The recent flush has been triggered, I think, by Merriam-Webster. They released a list of new words that had been added to their dictionary. “Eggcorn” was one of them. The M-W definition:
A word or phrase that sounds like and is mistakenly used in a seemingly logical or plausible way for another word or phrase either on its own or as part of a set expression.
Not a bad definition. Especially when compared with the lame definition published earlier by the OED:
An alteration of a word or phrase through the mishearing or reinterpretation of one or more of its elements as a similar-sounding word.
Most of the new web postings about eggcorns that have been occasioned by the M-W addition are eminently missable. Some are downright misleading—citing words as eggcorns that aren’t. I haven’t felt that any sites were worth passing along.
Except one. On May 30, NPR broadcast a short segment on the new “eggcorn” definition in M-W. It was an interview with Mark Memmott. He asked people to send him their best examples. He published these two days later on the NPR web site. The published list is an interesting mix of the good, the bad, and the ugly. There are, though, some entries on the list that have so far escaped our notice. Take a look at the list and see if there are some you might want to investigate. Here are 17 that appear not to have been mentioned in the Database or Forum and that might deserve more attention:
the best thing since live’s [sliced] bread
chicken spots [pox]
guilt [trap]
handy [hand me] downs
hearbuds [earbuds]
in other worlds [words]
your John Henry [Hancock]
lesser of two equals [evils]
magnaphone [megaphone]
nose drills [nostrils]
on the land [lam]
platemats [placemats]
goal-getter [go-getter]
self-compelled [self-propelled]
soul popper [soap opera]
tellingphone [telephone]
worth [work] ethic
“Handy downs,” “platemats,” and “guilt trap” are really common mistakes on web pages.
Last edited by kem (2015-06-05 22:38:11)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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Fun list, though many (most?) of these are pronounced differently enough from their acorns for their eggcornicity to be dubious on that account.
kem wrote:
your John Henry [Hancock]
I’ve encountered this one so many times that I’m starting to wonder whether it’s becoming more common than its acorn.
soul popper [soap opera]
When I was a kid, we called them “soap boppers”, but it was a conscious joke, not an eggcorn (for us).
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