Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2025-05-10
Maybe this is coming up because we almost never use the word “mere” in spoken English anymore, but I’m trying to convince a classmate not to use “the near suggestion” repeatedly in a paper. I’ve been looking online and can’t find any evidence to support either of our claims, so I’m starting to get that looming sense that I might be the one in the wrong. (But I just know I’m not. HAHA!)
Thoughts?
Rebekah
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Very nice find, Rebekah, though not common in that form. In an alternative form, it’s out there in the hundreds as a near fraction of. “A near suggestion” is a better eggcorn, I think, since it provides clear alternative imagery to replace a mere suggestion.
werewolf fanfic
She could smell her own sweat on him; catch the slightest hint, a near suggestion of their union over his flesh.
reddit for libertarians
There are market alternatives to his bill that would cost a near fraction of the price.
Also out there, as a mondegreen, are a dozen or so hits for a mirror fraction of.
animal defense blog
Pigs raised for meat live only 5-6 months a mirror fraction of a natural lifespan in a over crowded pin.
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There are also hundreds, even thousands of examples of “the near thought of,” “the near mention of,” “the near fact of,” and “the near sight of.” I think you have latched onto a major family of eggcorns.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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