Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
A nice Lehmann’s term:
This big McCall’s parrot
A fretful Bebe stood at her side gazing up at the wayward parrot … People recognized the McCall’s parrot and knew Bebe was supposed to be looking after him.
I was cleaning my room then I hear what I think is our blue in gold McCall named Sally squawking, but it was like her saying up but long drawn out and squawking at the same time.
(blue in gold is nice too)
Standard enough that Google proffered “mccalls parrots for sale†as a canned search.
Apparently the etymology of macaw is from an indigenous (Tupian?) Brazilian language via Portuguese. I might have guessed a Scot was somehow involved, as the perps of this one apparently have.
The -’s accommodates this into the paradigm of species names with the genitive of their (European) discoverer or popularizer’s surname prefixed to a more generic name. Same sort of thing as Lehmann’s, I suppose.
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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Made my day.
We have some precedent for eponymous macs. Macadam road, Macintosh coat. So the mind slides easily to the McCall Lehmann.
The Scots seem to have invented everything. Few people realize, for example, that pasta is Scottish (invented by Agnus McHarony) and that the Scots played a role in founding the state of Israel (Hamish McHabby and his brothers).
Last edited by kem (2017-04-12 12:11:31)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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Macaw (and Spanish guacamayo) seem vaguely onomatopeic.
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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