Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2025-05-10
I am proud to present my first contribution: ”(no) punt intended.” I first suspected that this was kind of “back-formation” from what was itself originally intended as a play on words, and of course is now employed by scores of clever writers on betting and sculling (UK) and American football. (Thus, a useful Google search must “manually” reject many candidates even when a verbatim search excludes terms such as NFL, football, wager, etc.)
i have found many instances, though, in which the speaker or writer appears to be unaware of this original “pun” and in which a typographical error is unlikely:
Found in the wild:
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showt … ollectible
https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserRev … gland.html
http://www.airhostsforum.com/t/bad-review-help/5399/34
http://www.pof.com/member3858139.htm
http://enchantedhome.com/2016/07/can-talk-d-word/
https://charlypriest.wordpress.com/2016 … tic-quote/ (in commentary)
http://www.hearthpwn.com/forums/class-d … raw?page=2
https://ascension101.com/en/home/free-a … ation.html
In the interest of brevity, I leave the rest to others.
Last edited by adambrower (2016-10-04 19:22:06)
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Welcome to the Forum, adambrower!
Suggestion: It’s best to post the whole sentence (or major phrase containing the eggcorn) along with each link. On a page full of text, it’s dauntingly hard to find the eggcorn without having a decent-sized block of text to scan for. I found the first one in your list, but gave up after trying the second two.
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In the interest of brevity, I leave the rest to others.
Nice bit of irony there, Adam. Dixon’s suggestion was couched far too mildly. Much time has passed and still I can’t find one with an eggcornish interpretation. My small knowledge of punt has it as a flat bottomed boat or moving about like one, a (now defunct) Irish pound or a casual bet or wager. There must be some American football link, thoughI just can’t find it. But don’t be discouraged! It could be my fault entirely. And I echo Dixon’s welcome. “Welcome!”.
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Peter Forster wrote:
My small knowledge of punt has it as a flat bottomed boat or moving about like one, a (now defunct) Irish pound or a casual bet or wager. There must be some American football link, though I just can’t find it.
Here’s the American football definition (per the American Heritage Dictionary):
A kick in which the ball is dropped from the hands and kicked before it touches the ground.
And here are a couple of other definitions you didn’t mention:
To cease doing something; give up: “Let’s punt on this and try something else.”
The indentation in the bottom of a champagne or wine bottle.
Looking over all these definitions, I too would be hard put to come up with an eggcornish meaning connection. We may have to write this one off as just a typo or a garden variety malaprop.
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It’s best to post the whole sentence (or major phrase containing the eggcorn)
Not only to help out us lazy types. Links fail after a certain time, some within days. Almost no links from the early days of the Eggcorn Forum and the Eggcorn Database still work.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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