Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
You are not logged in.
The Eggcorn Forum and the Eggcorn Database are currently in the process of being converted into static sites.
Once the conversion is complete, all existing posts are expected to still be accessible at their original URLs. However, no new posts will be possible.
Feel free to comment on the relevant forum threads.
Chris -- 2025-05-10
“Illucination” for “Hallucination”
Something you see because you’re ill??
Google results:
Hallucination
“Hallucinate”: 546,000
“Illucination”: 364
“Illucinate”: 170
(a few of these refer to a dance recording by that name)
Examples of usage:
“Since the servants were tired of all the bad things the owner of the house had done, they wanted revenge. They planned to add a liquid to the food that made the guest and the owner himself turn crazy, and illucinate things.”
http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/fo … 386&st=120
“Oh yeah i don’t see why my bro is blaming me for leaving Matts house, even though i did begin to illucinate while watching animal planet he was the one who asked me if i wanted to leave.”
http://smashboards.com/showthread.php?t … nextoldest
“Then it bit me. Illucination or not, I don’t just let things bite me, so I smacked the danged thing. I mean, if it’s my immagination, I should be able to swat it if I want, right? ”
http://www.sff.net/people/michael-picray/MRIs.html
“I was illucinating that someone was talking in the othe room but I knew it was an illucination and I thought “this would be a good time for S.P. to hit me and sure enough it did..”
http://www.sleephomepages.org/discussio … 11104.html
“was the whole water thing with juilette an jack an illucination?”
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/show … e=13&pp=25
Thanks!
(Also, whilst searching, there are quite a few people using “illucinate” for “elucidate”! Not sure where to start with that one, but not an eggcorn anyway so I won’t bother!)
Offline
I wish there were an easy way to find out whether the users of “illucinate” were speakers of dialects that regularly dropped intial “h.”
This also reminds me that I’ve often felt that some of these weird reshapings are influenced as much by the spelled shape of other words as by the sound of other words. In this case, I can’t help but wonder whether “illuminate” hasn’t exerted some influence.
Offline