Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
Since the act of gaping involves the mouth, it’s easy to confuse these two. 100+ ghits:
Random stones within these uneven borders had fallen away, making for a gape-toothed grin.
books.google.com/books?isbn=076530936X…
And she felt their gape-toothed grin laughing at her, mocking her for expecting a life without so much pain and death.
www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/aspec … p-090.html
I wanted to see freckles, a gape-toothed smile, eyes bright with mischief or drowsy with idle daydreams.
books.google.com/books?isbn=0312991010…
Whether it’s a Captain Jack Sparrow Costume from Pirates of the Caribbean, or just a black-eyed, gape-toothed, pirate girl costume, at fantasytoyland.com …
www.cs.fiu.edu/~mpill001/Costumes43.html
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Here’s a variation, going in the other direction:
When we arrived home and saw the fold up bed I thought it had come from the rubbish tip it had springs missing off it and had a gapping hole that the mattress and child would have fallen through there was no way anyone could have slept on this bed.
hotel review
I feel a gapping hole in my life that i dont have a lovely proper tea set!
pin
The bodies of two Germans flew out of the gapping hole and landed face down in the dirt. One body was missing an arm while the other had a gapping hole in his back.
novel
Replaced ceiling and this is the final product. Leaving a gapping hole for critters to visit.
loud yelp
my hamster has a gapping hole that is bleeding on the side of her head.
Q&A site
Time to Fill a Gapping Hole in The World Golf Hall of Fame
title
Absent a perp confession (shall we get out the waterboarding equipment?) I’m not sure how to tell whether, in any particular case, this is an eggcorn rather than just a spelling error. The meanings are plenty close for eggcornicity, but this is probably partly because of early etymological connections.
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“Gap”: and “gape” are etymological cousins. Their common ancestor lived in the English Teutonic Dämmerung.
Last edited by kem (2016-02-27 13:34:55)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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When seeing someone write “gapping” for “gaping”, I’ve been inclined to assume it was a spelling error or typo. But tonight on the TV news I heard the newscaster clearly referring to a hole caused by a window being smashed out as a “gapping hole”. So apparently there are those who really think it’s “gapping”. Surely this is an eggcorn for them.
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