Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
There are lots of examples of this one online. The eggcornish meaning connection is surely there, as being eminent is, after all, just being extremely evident. The pronunciation is a bit more problematical, with two differences in consonant sounds, but I think they’re close enough for plausible eggcornicity. YMMV.
It was eminent that if they should be able to challenge the hockey hierarchy in the south of Norway, Trondheim could not afford to have three clubs fighting for the right to do so…
Trondheim Black Panthers!
It was eminent that as a child, the essence of artistry dwelled in him.
bio
He played football, baseball, wrestled, and ran track in high school, so it was eminent that he would someday discover the benefits of chiropractic care…
chiroblather
...it was eminent that the case would swing in my favour where I was begged to withdraw my case against Obi but the issue was not resolved until the second meeting…
news from Africa
It was eminent that the dentist was in a rush, on both visits.
dentist review
It was eminent that all of the avenues of my life directed me to carve my niche and fulfill my dream of opening my own hall.
banquet hall website
But I loved this concert, because it was immediately clear that Newsom is exceptionally good at what she does. It was eminent that she was a genius and I promptly bought all her records and listened to them for two years straight.
a bit of man-bashing
It was eminent that I had to pay her a visit as well.
mountaineering discussion
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This one belongs to the flounder family, I think. It’s evident that they should have used evident in all cases. The semantic overlap is present but only serves to anaesthetize the frontal lobes.
I’m inclined to see it as a simple confusion of phonologically and semantically similar words, like flaunt/flout, militate/mitigate, flounder/founder, etc. (Incidentally, it would be nice to have a technical term for these confusions. Let me suggest FLOUNDERS.
...
Flounders are the counterpart of ordinary classical malapropisms (“ordinary” here means: not of the eggcorn subtype). In … flounders …, an incorrect word E is substituted for a phonologically similar word T … the error word E and the target word T also overlap semantically…
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/language … 04805.html
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David Bird wrote:
I’m inclined to see it as a simple confusion of phonologically and semantically similar words, like flaunt/flout, militate/mitigate, flounder/founder, etc. (Incidentally, it would be nice to have a technical term for these confusions. Let me suggest FLOUNDERS.
I note that in at least two of Zwicky’s examples above, the only semantic similarity is in shared suffixes; there is no apparent meaning connection in the words’ roots, not even metaphorically. My example, eminent/evident, does have such a connection, as I explicated in the initial post in this thread.
In … flounders …, an incorrect word E is substituted for a phonologically similar word T … the error word E and the target word T also overlap semantically…
Apart from being specific to single words as opposed to phrases, this seems to me to be pretty much the definition of eggcorns, due to the presence of both phonological and semantic similarities. So the distinction you (and Zwicky) are trying to make is lost on me. If, as you’ve acknowledged, Birdman, eminent/evident has both sound and meaning similarities, how is that not an eggcorn? Is it a matter of degree—i.e., are you saying the two words don’t sound similar enough to be eggcorns? (And, if so, does that mean that the definitional distinction between eggcrons and flounders is only such a matter of degree—which would create a grey area wherein the attribution of eggcornicity versus flounderosity would be more or less arbitrary?) Or…?
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Yes, I think the boundary between eggcorns and flounders is potentially indistinct, though not arbitrary. We will have to argue these cases out. Here is my position, based on the following Miriam Webster definitions:
eminent adj
: successful, well-known and respected
1: standing out so as to be readily perceived or noted : conspicuous
2: jutting out : projecting
3: exhibiting eminence especially in standing above others in some quality or position : prominent
Now let’s take one of the hits: It was eminent that the dentist was in a rush, on both visits.
Clearly, the main definition does not fit here. There’s nothing positive or illustrious about how the dentist acted. There is, however, conspicuous semantic overlap between evident and additional definition 1. But this is not an eggcornical substitution, it’s a mere synonym. But I find definition 1 to be ambiguous anyway, since eminent is very rarely used to refer to things that aren’t conspicuous in a positive sense. So that to me is the error. Eminent is not a reanalysis of evident that makes sense of evident. It’s too malapropriate.
If there is room for eggcornery, it is with the second definition. If eminent is used as an exaggerated version of evident, well, errr … maybe. But that sense doesn’t fit with the other hits you’ve amassed. They all say evident. “It was eminent that she was a genius” has elements of a blend. “It was evident that she would be eminent.”
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We have batted the flounder issue around before. For my take on it, see my second post in this 2008 thread. Flounders are eggcorns, I believe, but eggcorns of a particular type. An eggcorn, like the old kitchen stool, is supported on three legs. The first is semantic, the second phonological, the third syntactic. The first two legs of an eggcorn are obvious ones: flounder eggcorns (1) have to share some meaning and they (2) have to sound alike. About the only way they differ from non-flounder eggcorns in these two aspects is that the flounder acorn and eggcorn both have to be lexical items (ordinary eggcorns, like “eggcorn” itself when used to mean acorn, can be non-lexical). It’s the third leg, the syntactical one, that ultimately differentiates regular eggcorns from flounder eggcorns. Eggcorns have to occur in a context. Sometimes the context is extremely tight and the eggcorn only replaces the acorn in a single idiomatic phrase. When the contexts in which the replacement happens are really loose, we have a flounder eggcorn.
The polyvalent substitutions that characterize flounder eggcorns can never, of course, be totally context free. There are always some contexts for the acorn that are more likely to invite replacement by the eggcorn. So calling an eggcorn a flounder eggcorn is going to be a line call, at best. In the case of “eminent <- evident,” for example, consider the phrase “as evident from X.” I don’t see any examples on the web where “eminent” replaces “evident” in this context (i.e., “as eminent from X”). Still, I think I would agree that this is a flounder eggcorn. The substitution works in a great many contexts.
My biggest problem with the “eminent/evident” eggcorn is lies along the phonological leg. Offhand, I can’t think of any examples from our 5000+ candidate eggcorns on the Database and Forum in which a nasal replaces a fricative. In English, it’s a rather long phonetic leap from the /v/ phoneme to the /m/ phoneme.
Last edited by kem (2015-11-03 22:16:14)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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David Bird wrote:
eminent adj
: successful, well-known and respected
1: standing out so as to be readily perceived or noted : conspicuous
2: jutting out : projecting
3: exhibiting eminence especially in standing above others in some quality or position : prominent
Now let’s take one of the hits: It was eminent that the dentist was in a rush, on both visits.
...There is, however, conspicuous semantic overlap between evident and additional definition 1. But this is not an eggcornical substitution, it’s a mere synonym.
I think it’s a stretch to call eminent and evident synonyms. You certainly wouldn’t find them so designated in any thesaurus. Anyway, who says an eggcornical meaning connection can’t be a synonym? My understanding (which, as always, may be wrong) is that the meaning connection between acorn and eggcorn need only be such that a person could plausibly make sense of the eggcorn in the same context in which the acorn would appear. Synonyms would fit that criterion.
But I find definition 1 to be ambiguous anyway, since eminent is very rarely used to refer to things that aren’t conspicuous in a positive sense. So that to me is the error. Eminent is not a reanalysis of evident that makes sense of evident.
I’m not even sure what you mean by that. The plausible meaning connection I’ve pointed out is sufficient for eggcornicity, is it not? The additional technical criteria you are trying to impose are, as far as I know, not required by other eggcornistas. (Am I wrong about this?)
If there is room for eggcornery, it is with the second definition. If eminent is used as an exaggerated version of evident, well, errr … maybe. But that sense doesn’t fit with the other hits you’ve amassed.
Interesting that you say that, because as far as I can see, eminent is used as an exaggerated version of evident in every example I gave, and probably in every conceivable one that makes any sense in context.
I dunno, maybe my lack of training in linguistics etc. is causing me to miss real distinctions that you’re making. In any case, I don’t see your point(s).
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kem wrote:
My biggest problem with the “eminent/evident” eggcorn is lies along the phonological leg. Offhand, I can’t think of any examples from our 5000+ candidate eggcorns on the Database and Forum in which a nasal replaces a fricative. In English, it’s a rather long phonetic leap from the /v/ phoneme to the /m/ phoneme.
Yeah, I’ve acknowledged that the pronunciation difference is the biggest obstacle to eggcornicity in this case. But I tend to be much looser than most eggcornistas as regards the level of pronunciation similarity. After all, everything we consider as a possible eggcorn must be pronounced similarly enough to its acorn that we can assume the similarity is not just coincidental. In any such case, aren’t we assuming that the pronunciation similarity is part of what motivated the substitution in the first place? And isn’t this true regardless of whether the pronunciation similarity is total (as in per say for per se), or quite loose (as in eminent for evident)? Those of us who have such an innate talent for linguistics that we would give a damn about such things as eggcorns find it hard to understand that many people’s perception/grasp/memory of how things are pronounced is very very fuzzy—far more so than ours. Add to that the natural tendency to replace unfamiliar words with familiar ones, even if that requires fudging the pronunciation, and I’m led to this radical proposal: In virtually any case in which there’s enough pronunciation similarity to make us think “Is this an eggcorn?”, we should consider the pronunciation similarity criterion satisfied—even if the pronunciation is so distorted as to make us cringe a little. Our negative aesthetic response is irrelevant to the factual issue: Does it look like the substitution was motivated partly by the acorn/eggcorn pronunciation similarity? If so, the pronunciation criterion for eggcornicity is satisfied. Eminence for evidence easily satisfies that criterion. I think our tendency to be pickier than that may reflect a bit of snobbishness.
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I’m not saying that “eminent < evident†is not an eggcorn. I’m just saying that we have to factor the anomalous phonology of the switch into our judgment.
While the three-legged stool is a useful analogy for underlining the three essentials of an eggcorn (and why flounder eggcorns are peculiar), the analogy doesn’t always deliver the right message. A three-legged stool with one really long leg and one short one would be a peculiar sight. Yet that is what happens with eggcorns: a poor showing in one of the three pillars can be compensated by a strong showing in another. Perhaps we should think of the three aspects of eggcorns — the phonological, the semantic, and the syntactic — as three oxen pulling a cart. The three-way yoke requires three beasts and the weight of the cart requires a certain oxpower to get it moving. We can provide this oxpower with three equally strong oxen, one very large ox and two smaller ones, two moderately large and one smaller one, and so on.
The weak showing of “eminent < evident†in the phonological requirement (which we agree on) and the syntactical requirement (flounders are by definition syntactically weak) could be compensated, then, by a strong semantic pull. I think that is what our discussion has been about. Just how much semantic overlap do these two words have?
Last edited by kem (2015-11-04 11:02:19)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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I’ve read the posts I could find about flounders here on the forum and I seem to be in a minority here. I don’t think flounders are eggcorns (or at least they’re not eggcorns worthy of the title). The substitution of flaunt for flout, and vice versa, is a plain old malaprop for me – but one that has, as Mr Zwicky says, some semantic overlap, in this case in some sort of insouciant attitude perhaps. Same for mixups between flounder and founder. The latter both potentially involve distress in a water body, but mistaking one word for the other leads to misinformation, or at the very least, ambiguity that is not eggcornical. Ditto eminent/evident. When someone uses flounder when the image they are trying to communicate demands founder, then it’s a vanilla malaprop. If eminent is used, when evident was meant, that’s a malaprop. If eminent is used as a kind of glorified synonym for evident, then that’s not an eggcorn because there is no change of sense or imagery.
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In denying eggcorn status to flounders, DavidB, you side with Arnold Zwicky, who invented this linguistic term. He said that flounders were “not of the eggcorn subtype.â€
I have no problem with developing a broad-based definition of eggcorns then hiving off groups that fit the definition but that we don’t want to include in the eggcorn category. We have already done this with folk etymologies (sucessful eggcorn-like entities that have largely replaced their acorns in standard English) and mondegreens (eggcorn-like entities that occur in the title and lyrics of songs and poems). We could call flounders “eggcorn-like lexical entries entities that do acorn-eggcorn replacements in polyvalent contexts.â€
The reason I want to include flounders in the eggcorn category is two-fold. First, the flounder terminology, unlike the folk etymologies and mondegreens labels, came along after the eggcorn label had been inventted. The prior use conventions that might lead to exceptions do not carry much weight. Second, I find the notion of syntactical and idiomatic context, the crucial characterisic that divides a flounder from an eggcorn, too loose to apply in the real world. I seems like I can always think of some context which, by discouraging or promoting the replacement more than other contexts, makes the replacement contexts asymmetric.
If eminent is used as a kind of glorified synonym for evident, then that’s not an eggcorn because there is no change of sense or imagery.
If it is an exact synonym (assuming such a thing exists) then you are right. But “emminent†and “evident†are not full synonyms. So some part of the meaning of “emminent†that does not overlap with “evident†can paint itself into the phrase and that makes it behave like an eggcorn. Consider the following dialogue:
X: (gloating) “It was eminent that the outcomes would favor my position.â€
Y: “What do you mean, ‘eminent’�
X: “You know, obvious. Obvious because it stood out more strongly than the other options. It was head and shoulders above the other possibilities.â€
Last edited by kem (2015-11-05 12:54:05)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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