Eggcorn Forum

(If the site I found this on is to be trusted) Thomas Cogswell Upham wrote in 1834 (in “A Philosophical and Practical Treatise on the Will”):

There may be complex ideas of things, as Mr. Locke has correctly maintained, which are chimerical; that is to say, which have nothing corresponding to them in outward objects, or in any thing else, such as the ideas of a hypogriff, dragon, centaur, gold lighter than water, &c.

Chimerical things may easily be seen as hypothetical, of course. It seems unlikely that Professor Upham was punning, (though volitional errors in a treatsie on the will would be especially fun). The prefix hypo – seems to me to have an aura of unreality, probably from hypothesis/-etical, hypocrite/-isy, and perhaps other forms. The horse-laugh of a hippos would blow it away, but Upham is not the only one to substitute hypo for hippo. There are many other usages of hypogriff (and images of the beast itself) on the Internet, and also of hypopotamus (which as Chesterton observed of the rhino, may indeed exist but looks as if he didn’t) in his various spellings (hypopotomus, the more Greek-looking hypopotamos).
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Is it eggcornish? I suspect so, but don’t know. It seems likely that some usages are puns, which would mean that some are thinking that hypo- fits in entertainingly. If any saliently think of a hypothetical beast when they say it or especially when they spell it this way, and have forgotten the more standard spelling, I think it is an eggcorn. (An unusual one —a unique-corn, perhaps?)

Last edited by DavidTuggy (2017-12-19 18:57:26)