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Chris -- 2018-04-11

#1 2016-02-03 09:12:39

1homeschoolMom
Member
Registered: 2016-02-03
Posts: 1

"near suggestion" for "mere suggestion"

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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#2 2016-02-03 12:03:02

David Bird
Eggcornista
From: The Hammer, Ontario
Registered: 2009-07-28
Posts: 1690

Re: "near suggestion" for "mere suggestion"

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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#3 2016-02-08 18:37:35

kem
Eggcornista
From: Victoria, BC
Registered: 2007-08-28
Posts: 2851

Re: "near suggestion" for "mere suggestion"

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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