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Chris -- 2018-04-11

#1 2006-10-18 14:28:38

CatherineR
Eggcornista
Registered: 2006-08-09
Posts: 61

a tension getter / attention getter?

From a student paper:

“Overall the story was good, but it was not a tension getter for me.”

Has anyone else seen this one?

Catherine Rogers

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#2 2006-10-18 19:16:04

jorkel
Eggcornista
Registered: 2006-08-08
Posts: 1456

Re: a tension getter / attention getter?

I just had to check the web for this one. Although there were 46 ghits, only one seemed to apply…

Musician War guitar tabs for Joanne vs. Whisper My Name In My EarWell the weird notes at the end were just kind of a tension getter more of just i felt it sounded cool with it . And it did if it wasn ’ t for my mp3 …
www.musicianwar.com/viewmelee.mw?war_id=ZzxgPTYz – 95k – Supplemental Result – Cached – Similar pages


I’m not quite sure what to make of it. Nor do I know what to make of this reference to a tension span:

George Steiner: “In Bluebeard’s Castle<BR>Some Notes Towards the …In their execution of and response to popular music the young have a tension-span, a suppleness of appropriation denied to the old. ...
www.anti-rev.org/textes/Steiner71a/4.html – 74k – Cached – Similar pages

I’m leaning toward calling them eggcorns, but I’m not sure whether the assembly of the three words that comprise them isn’t just incidental.

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#3 2006-10-18 22:36:44

patschwieterman
Administrator
From: California
Registered: 2005-10-25
Posts: 1680

Re: a tension getter / attention getter?

It’s possible that the quotation from Steiner is an example of a scanning error, but I suspect it’s an instance of intentional wordplay on Steiner’s part; such a phrase would be wholly in keeping with his jazzy prose style.

I’ve never noticed these tension-based reshapings in student papers, but I’ll certainly be looking for them now.

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