Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
Can’t wait to see picks of everyone’s outfits!
FaceBook comment
Can I see picks of your aftermarket grilles on your tuxedo black fx4?
car talk
Enjoy the Mark Wood and the Parrot Head Band Promo Video. You will see picks of Jimmy Buffett’s own Steel Pan man Robert Greenidge, performing with the band at the Burbank Starlight Bowl!
band info
Some people really dont seem realize how hard it can be to keep a home clean and tidy! Would have been nice to see picks of the house finished.
blog comment
WOULD LIKE TO SEE PICKS OF REAR WING 82/92CAMARO
car talk
“Pick” for “pic” (short for picture) may make sense to some; if we’re looking for a good pictorial representation of something, we will pick the best one. Hence, the one(s) we present wil be our “pick(s)”.
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Take your pic.
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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It would be nice to have some evidence that this is more than a creative spelling mistake.
Speaking of creative, I see that there is at least one pet photography business named “Pic of the Litter.”
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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kem wrote:
It would be nice to have some evidence that this is more than a creative spelling mistake.
Well, I don’t have any perp confessions, but consider this: I think that virtually anyone who knows that “pic” is short for “picture” also knows that “picture” isn’t spelled “pickture”. Thus, adding the “k” would seem to suggest a reanalysis rather than a mere spelling glitch, at least in many cases.
And that’s about all I’ve got.
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I’m with kem in being unsure that this is an eggcorn rather than just being a non-etymological spelling. For comparison, I doubt that all the people who use the spelling “mike” instead of “mic” are unaware that it is a shortening of “microphone”. There’s also “fridge” < “refrigerator”.
Last edited by Eli Nelson (2017-12-07 11:59:23)
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Not sure what you’re saying, Eli. Are “mike†and “fridge†“just†non-etymological spellings, on your view? Does people being unaware that “mike†comes from “microphone†change its status in any way (toward or away from being an eggcorn, or from being a non-etymological spelling)?
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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Eli Nelson wrote:
I’m with kem in being unsure that this is an eggcorn rather than just being a non-etymological spelling. For comparison, I doubt that all the people who use the spelling “mike” instead of “mic” are unaware that it is a shortening of “microphone”. There’s also “fridge” < “refrigerator”.
But there are pronunciation reasons for the spelling changes in the shortened versions of “microphone” and “refrigerator”. People who aren’t already familiar with the abbreviated form “mic” would tend to pronounce it “mick” and become confused re: what the writer is referring to. That’s why I, among others, have spelled it “mike”. Likewise (licwise?), shortening “refrigerator” to “frig” would yield a titillating term that rhymes with “rig”, obscuring the intended meaning. There is no such pronunciation reason for shortening “picture” to “pick”. That decreases the likelihood (liclihood?) that people are using “pick” simply as a non-eggcornish (mis)spelling rather than a reanalyzed substitution—an eggcorn.
And re: your “I doubt that all the people who use the spelling “mike”...”—eggcornicity does not require that everyone who uses a term is using it as an eggcorn. Mere misspellings, among other things, could account for some instances without ruling out the possibility that the term is an eggcorn for some users.
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It’s true that going from spelling to sound, “pic” doesn’t suggest an incorrect pronunciation, but is an unconventional correspondence going from sound to spelling. Monosyllables ending in /ɪk/ are usually spelled with “ick”: there are only a few other monosyllables ending in “ic”, like “sic” and “tic” (which I would imagine are somewhat frequently misspelled as “sick” and “tick”—the first one probably is an eggcorn for some speakers, but I’m not sure about the second).
Last edited by Eli Nelson (2017-12-08 12:28:35)
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Why or how would sick < sic be an eggcorn? Would the idea be that whatever is flagged with [sic] must be nauseating? Without a perp’s confession I would doubt it. I have rarely if ever heard sic pronounced, and when I read it it is clearly not “sickâ€. Maybe others have, and jumped to the eggcornish analysis.
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How would tick< tic work if it is an eggcorn? A jerking muscle looks like a bloodsucking insect bit the person? Sounds kind of far out, but I don’t see another connection. Unless maybe the jerking muscle is like the ticking of a clock?
Convince me that they are at least somewhat reasonable!
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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DavidTuggy wrote:
How would tick< tic work if it is an eggcorn?...
Many tics are of the type called “phonic tics” (sometimes referred to as verbal or vocal tics). Just about any sound imaginable that a human can utter may occur. Conceivably, someone heard a phonic tic in the form of a “ticking” sound and eggcorned from there. A bit of a stretch, I admit.
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