Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
I am not sure if this qualifies as an eggcorn, but today I saw this: “Literally did they know that they actually did you a favor Jeff!”. It was here: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid … 4055620558
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Give us a plausible semantic path the perp(s) may be following here? How can they mean “literally†and yet make the whole phrase “literally did they know†work out at all reasonably to mean “they did not know†?
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(And, welcome to the forum!)
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2015-10-03 15:04:13)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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Mulling: could the literally mean something like “reallyâ€, and the interrogative-related ordering did they know (rather than they knew/did know ) mean “it is doubtful whether they knew†? This might yield something like “It is really doubtful whether they knewâ€, or perhaps “Probably/pretty clearly they really didn’t knowâ€; or “Really, could they possibly have known?â€. Those readings would be in the ballpark.
But I can’t convince myself, little alone anybody else.
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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