Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
Hi,
Newcomer to the forum but a spotter over the years. Went to a conference today at which a speaker, talking about the provision of health and residential care for older people with dementia, complained that the health care system these days is based on such a utalitarian philosophy.
I’m not sure if this wasn’t just a malapropism, but the link between utilitarian and totalitarian struck me as having a certain resonance.
Commnets would be welcome.
Paul
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Pretty good assessment so far. A few points to consider. An eggcorn usually has a more sophisticated term replaced with a less sophisticated one (rather than one of equal sophistication). Since both utilitarian and totalitarian are about equal in complexity, it may signal a malapropism.
I’m also having trouble getting into the mind of the speaker. Was the speaker largely thinking the concept “totalitarian” when uttering “utalitarian?” (...or just mispronouncing “utilitarian” using the more familiar word template provided by “totalitarian?”) If the speaker was truly thinking the concept then it might be an eggcorn, but there just doesn’t seem to be a strong enough motivation for morphing the word. Just my opinion. Perhaps I have missed something.
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My impression was that the speaker intended utilitarian, although may well not have fully understood that concept, and mispronounced the word (or was not sufficiently familiar with it), being lured into the mispronunciation because of some half remembered knowledge of totalitarian. And creating in the process this interesting hybrid that could well take on a life of its own.
I’m not sure about the role of intention in eggcorns – my assumption was that they were mistakes made by someone trying to use what they thought was a correct expression, the user remaining ignorant of their mistake. Hence I hear lots of people saying “renumeration”, or “one foul (or fowl) swoop”, beleiving this to be correct?
Cheers,
Paul
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