Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
Found this one via Slashdot:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=197064&cid=16147592
It gets a mention on Wikipedia:
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Thanks—really interesting.
I suspect that many people on the Forum never bother clicking on links included in posts, but the Wikipedia comment on alternate explanations for “Ivy League” is worth quoting here:
Some attribute the name [Ivy League] to the Roman numerals for four (IV), asserting that there was such a sports league originally with four members. The Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins helped to perpetuate this belief. The supposed “IV League” was formed over a century ago and consisted of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and a 4th school that varies depending on who is telling the story.
Roscivs’ post also reminded me of an old Ken Lakritz post. In this case the variation was “Ivory League.” Some writers who use this are obviously alluding to the lack of racial diversity at some IL schools, but some of the examples are clearly authentic:
# 330 Commentary by Ken Lakritz , 2005/04/09 at 8:51 pm
‘ivory league’ for ‘ivy league.’ Confusion with the ivory tower? examples-
I am a PhD student at an Ivory League university.
www.blackamericaweb.com/s… bawnews/testing1109?view=Forum&message_id=24995
His brilliant mind brought him to the east-coast ivory league Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the late 1970’s.
www.plausiblefutures.com/…
… postmodern theory hegemony in tertiary institutions; rigorously exposing the egos and eccentricities that still roam the corridors of the ivory league. …
home.vicnet.net.au/~ozlit…
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Surely “Ivory League” is a cross between “Ivy League” and “ivory tower”? And where does “ivory tower” come from, anyway? Why “ivory,” rather than marble? Something to do with the two gates of dreams, the “horn gate” and the “ivory gate”?
David
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Ken actually caught the “ivory tower” possibility in his post. I didn’t have a clue where “ivory tower” came from, but a bit of quick googling turned up this post by Michael Quinion over at World Wide Words: http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-ivo1.htm
(In other posts it’s become clear that Quinion just doesn’t understand the idea of the “eggcorn,” but he’s generally pretty good otherwise.)
No time for illustrative quotations at the moment, but the short version is that “ivory tower” as a phrase has its beginning in the Song of Solomon, where it refers to the beloved’s neck. In its modern sense it was first used to refer to scholarly isolation by an early 19th C French poet, Charles-Augustin Saint-Beuve; Henry James then helped to popularize it in the Anglosphere.
Quinion isn’t sure why the poet chose to make his tower out of ivory. He does consider the “gates of ivory and horn” angle, and suggests that the allusion to ivory may imply naivete or foolishness.
Pat
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Here’s another variation:
America’s vaunted Halls of Ivory, colleges and universities are permeated with professorial types spewing Fabian Socialism at every turn.
conservative blog
So it seems in “Bad Manners”, a “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”-ish drama centering on two couples who grapple in the halls of ivory.
movie review
It is a fringe curiosity, avoided at all costs by those in the scientific community that (currently) value their halls of ivory reputation.
bigfoot discussion
Has it originated within the halls of ivory of religion?
religious blog
Money buys considerable influence in the cash-strapped Halls of Ivory where learned scholars sell their posteriors…
opinion piece
So we have ivory << >> ivy in both directions and multiple variations. The eggcornish meaning connection for “halls of ivory” would be the same as previously mentioned for “ivory league”. Most examples of “halls of ivory” I found were puns referring to the Caucasian-dominated nature of educational institutions, or other non-eggcornish uses, but the ones I cite above are, I think, the real thing.
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What is the purpose of marriage?
If have kids … work for them, make more money for them, send them IV leak school’s.
Dating profile
Fly-by-night organ transplant college.
IV league would make a nice addition to our list of lettered eggcorns.
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I am facing an organ transplant. As soon as I saw “IV League,” I immediately thought “intravenous.” I guess I’m in an “IV League” of sorts!
I am fairly certain that Harvard Yard, prior to the 1980s, did have ivy-covered walls. All the ivy, though, was removed, according to:
http://www.preservationnation.org/magaz … -yard.html
This leads me to wonder whether all the original Ivy Leagues schools may have had that particular flora—hence the name.
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bluecrab wrote:
I am facing an organ transplant.
Best of luck with that transplant, bluecrab! I am rooting for you.
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