Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
You are not logged in.
Registrations are currently closed because of a technical problem. Please send email to
The forum administrator reserves the right to request users to plausibly demonstrate that they are real people with an interest in the topic of eggcorns. Otherwise they may be removed with no further justification. Likewise, accounts that have not been used for posting may be removed.
Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
Plenty of examples of this on the web:
“150 gms Cream cheese (ready made ) or Heat 200 ml amul cream, add 1 lime. Cool and strain in muslim cloth ( Preferably keep in refrigerated while straining)”
from https://spicealchemy.wordpress.com/cate … an-sweets/
Interestingly, if you search for muslim cloth in books.google.com, there are a lot of hits. It looks like google’s OCR seems to change muslin cloth to muslim cloth:
“Brew It Yourself: Make Your Own Wine, Beer, and Other Concoctions
https://books.google.ie/books?isbn=1848992742
Nick Moyle, ‎Richard Hood – 2015 – ‎Cooking
Strain again through a clean muslim cloth. This is to ensure that no irritating rosehip hairs make their way into the final syrup. 6. Add to a pan with the sugar, then …”
When you check the book text, it’s fine. Are there other examples of computer generated eggcorns?
Offline
In order for muslim cloth to be accepted as an eggcorn, it should provide plausible alternative imagery or logical semantics. It has to make sense in context.
I think it’s easy to make that case, and it’s surprising that muslim cloth has not been entered here before. The etymology of muslin from Wikipedia makes clear the connection between sheer fabrics and the Muslim world.
Muslin (AmE: Muslin gauze) from French mousseline, from Italian mussolina, from Mussolo ‘Mosul’ (Mosul, Iraq, where European traders are said to have first encountered the cloth). Although this view has the fabric named after the city where Europeans first encountered it (Mosul), the fabric is believed to have originated in Dhakeshwari, now called Dhaka, which is now the capital of Bangladesh. In the 9th century, an Arab merchant named Sulaiman made note of the material’s origin in Bengal (known as Ruhml in Arabic). Bengali muslin was traded throughout the Muslim world, from the Middle East to Southeast Asia. In many Islamic regions, such as in Central Asia, the cloth was named Daka, after the city of Dhaka.
A nice contribution, zanardi.
Regarding machine-based errors in transcription, and other computer errors, we have adopted the term silicism on this forum, as a blend of solecism and silicon. They can be funny and apt, but they’re not eggcorns.
Offline
Muslim cloth provides me an opportunity to slip in another vision of muslin, as muzzling cloth. If it makes sense at all, it would be as a kind of a wrap, covering, sheathing; a restraint. Maybe.
Take out juice from 2 dozen oranges and weight it, juice should be 2 1/2 pond, strain the juice with a muzzling cloth or plastic sieve
Indian orange drink
What type of clothes do people in the gobi desert wear?
Answer: Usually light weight muzzling cloth clothes. They are usually white to reflect heat and keep the people cool.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_type_of_ … esert_wear
The way they used to do it in the chip shops round Grimsby was ..
Put it in some muzzling cloth, tie it up and boil until firm
Fishing forum cooking advice, cod roe
Soak chana overnight
Boil till tender
While boiling add half of thw require salt
Tea tied in a muzzling cloth
After the first whistle; reduce the gas and let them simmer for 30 minutes
Recipe for chole, chickpea curry
Offline
Technically, an example of “muslim cloth” generated by an OCR error (or any other silicism) would not be an eggcorn per se. Eggcorns have to be part of the vocabulary of a subset of speakers.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
Offline
kem wrote:
Technically, an example of “muslim cloth” generated by an OCR error (or any other silicism) would not be an eggcorn per se. Eggcorns have to be part of the vocabulary of a subset of speakers.
Yes, I totally accept the point on silicisms.
There are however plenty of examples of muslim cloth and fewer of muslum cloth, which I believe are human generated:
http://www.khanapakana.com/recipe/aa714 … ham-sawera
“Then wrap a muslim cloth around the spinach”
http://pastaqueen.com/blog/2009/12/the- … xperiment/
“I always hang mine in a muslim cloth over the sink”
http://atariage.com/forums/topic/18190- … d/page-176
“defuse the light by putting some muslum cloth between the bulb and the object”
Offline
and your last example shows the ubiquitous mistake of using “defuse” for “diffuse”. People don’t seem to be aware that there are two different words, with different spellings and very different meanings.
“I always wanted to be somebody. I should have been more specific.” – Lily Tomlin
Offline
I thought this one was already in here somewhere for it is widespread and I’ve heard it in use on several occasions. The connection of cloth to country or culture is well established with calico from Calicut and… there’s at least one more but it escapes me. Another variant looms though:
Pre shave I cleanse with the daily face wash using warm water & a muscling cloth I then apply the facial scrub using a circular motion working …
Cooling effect helps to decreases swelling and constricts the blood vessels. So take some ice cubes in a muscling cloth and keep it over your eyes for at least 10 minutes.
How about trying to wrap a towel or A muscling cloth around your fingers and flip the lid ?
Offline
Peter Forster wrote:
The connection of cloth to country or culture is well established with calico from Calicut and… there’s at least one more but it escapes me.
Madras, from the town of the same name in India? Or denim (formerly “serge de Nimes”) from Nimes, France?
Offline
No, it was damask (from Damascus) that was hiding from me, together with cashmere (Kashmir, obviously) but thanks for the denim, Dixon, I didn’t know that one.
Just out of interest, mine if no-one else’s, here’s the apparent origin of the fabric known as tweed.
The original name of the cloth was tweel, Scots for twill, the material being woven in a twilled rather than a plain pattern. A traditional story has the name coming about almost by chance. Around 1831, a London merchant received a letter from a Hawick firm, Wm. Watson & Sons, Dangerfield Mills about some “tweels”. The merchant misinterpreted the handwriting, understanding it to be a trade-name taken from the river Tweed that flows through the Scottish Borders textile area. The goods were subsequently advertised as Tweed and the name has remained since.
Offline