Eggcorn Forum

When I saw the headline I thought, “Those have got to be typos.” But your examples definitely look like reshapings rather than simple mechanical errors. I’m not sure what the semantic imagery would be, but I’m convinced that at least some of those people intended “shape of form” or “shaper form”.

I found the following interesting further reshapings, some more successful than others: way shay perform, way shake or form and a jewel, in any way she’ll perform. Finally, without wanting to exaggerate its importance, an encounter with machine intelligence. I have not included repeats of the above entries, though there are several nice versions of Pat’s discovery, in the form of “weigh, shape or form”, on diet and exercise sites.

First, the most problematic: way shay perform. I doubt that there is any imagery intended here – it’s in birth pangs, or on the way somewhere that can’t yet be identified:

The things that cause problems are mobs that knock you back or some way shay perform get you away long enough to throw off you generating those combo points. (http://vnboards.ign.com/wow_rogue_class … 7525/p1/?7)

I think somebody in Tamiya found out how desperately everyone, who started their hobby with a Tamiya Off Road car, wanted a new car from Tamiya in any way shay perform including this one.
(http://forums.radiocontrolzone.com/show … 492&page=4)

I liked the following connection between gambling and shaking (dice?), though it may be intentional

For, as you know, I do not gamble in any shake or form, the gambling being a sinful activity, (http://www.irishblogs.ie/similar-to/a-d … e-racists/)

people shouldnt joke and kid.this story wasnt funny in any way shake or form. (http://www.wsaz.com/home/headlines/37156179.html)

As bad as things are right now, I would not bet my money on armageddon now. One way or the other, we’ll make our way back, although in what shake or form, nobody can tell. (http://app.businessweek.com/UserComment … ageIndex=4)

Stock market advice:

And energy through the whole complex, avoid the consumer discretionary and avoid the advertising model certainly, avoid anything that sort of related to the auto industry in any way she’ll perform. (http://forum.putclub.com/redirect.php?t … to=newpost)

It seems to me that somewhere in the archives of this site, I ran across someone’s comment about scanner errors. Has there been any discussion about the possibility that some of the “eggcorns” on the web are the inexact results of a computer process? It seems likely that the role of these errors in the development of the language itself will continue to grow. Both optical character recognition and voice-to-text software are legion today. After hunting down what I thought was an intriguing eggcorn: “anyway she perform” for any way, shape, or form, it became clear that all instances were mutations from voice transcripts of podcasts. I know it’s not deep or anything, and I have absolutely no doubt that it has been better expressed elsewhere, but I’m struck repeatedly with the similarity between the evolution of genetic material and of language. Entering a search phrase into google is no different from amplifying a specific gene sequence out of a mass of DNA. The success and propagation of a reshaping depends on chance (within the environment of culture) and felicity. Machine intelligence will act like a mutagen. Of course so will Annie Lehmann. It is an exactly analogous process all down the line. Which in no way she’ll perform reduces the occasional hilarity of the result.

(Blanches) Thanks Kem, after a visit to all these places I see that this is very well-trodden ground (mentally drops 50-page groundbreaking manuscript into shredder).

Although it now has less than zero value, I humbly submit that, maybe, somewhere, there will be a place for an alternative to the cupertino. Let’s say cupertinos cover word-processor, optical-character-reader and voice-recognition-software goof-ups. That leaves … hmm, that leaves computer mistakes due to random cosmic-ray damage to circuits, and … the not-too-far off day when computers become sentient and start make errors under emotional stress.

When either of the latter events occur, I have prepared a new coinage: the silicism. Until then, or in case the Cupertino people want their word back, “silicism” will be redundant but ensconced in the archives.

A silicism is a mix of silicon and solecism, with strong dash of syllogism thrown in. A solecism is a grammatical mistake, in particular an error of syntax. Wikipedia says, “Ancient Athenians considered the dialect of the inhabitants of their colony Soli in Cilicia to be a corrupted form of their own pure Attic dialect, full of “solecisms”.” Say, sounds like our own carbon-based regard for the cupertino. A syllogism is the fundamental form of deductive reasoning, the sine qua non of our silicon cousins.

When I did a Google search for the word “silicism”, it was as if Google itself were voicing its approval in the few hits it provided. These included 2 inexplicable substitutions of the word silicism for, first, solecism, and second, sinicism. These are here – you will begin to see what I mean about the I Ching-like pertinence of these hits:

In speaking of the Book of Mormon, Dr. Pierce said that more than 3000 corrections to orthography and grammar had been made since the original edition. These 3000 cahnges, he said, are not typographical corrections [...] He said that the vernacular of the backwoods of western New York is found on every page of these works and that silicism which would delight the heart of the modern dialect writer crops out in every sentence.
(http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/UT/tribune3.htm)

Realizing the limitation would be a threat to the art development, the painter gradually changes his approach in his later work and successfully solves his own artistic problem, which is to use the Chinese popular visual symbol to correspond to the existing Chinese culture and silicism. (http://www.artnow.com.cn/CommonPage/Art … leID=14523)

The other pertinent hits are flaming cupertinos. As Pat notes in the post Kem references above, a sign of Cupertinism is the appearance, in the link space on the search page, of an alphabet soup of ASCII symbols. The two links in question that Google produced were:

• c<Ls i!i>i cl^sili cism PZt ?
• in 2 c^nnn nf « silicism , >,vt>icl> reso«ilz

  The first led inexplicably to a book in German on “Planning, Statistics and Decision”. The second led, again as Pat suggested, to a Google book—The Gentleman’s Magazine—from 1795. It is worth quoting the passage identified, for it is pertinent. The word silicism it found in the passage was in fact the word “criticism” without its initial letter c:

  muft we give up a miracle in complement to a canon of c riticifm, which refpects dramatic compofition, but has nothing at all to do with the hiftory of God’s providential interpofitions ?” (http://books.google.ca/books?id=OfkRAAA … &ct=result) I believe this link will reproduce the effect.

  Finally, the silicism will provide fertile ground for meta-eggcorns through similarity to, for example, silicosis and psilocybin.

  By the way, let me finish this exposition with a bit of anticlimax: the gem found in the original submission above, any way she’ll perform, I have come to realize, is an online piece of homework from Chinese students learning to understand English by transcribing a piece of video from CNN; the video is there as well. Eggcorning in action.

  Last edited by burred (2009-03-25 23:19:49)

Silicism. I agree, great term.

It’s not likely we will bump “cupertino effect” at this stage, but perhaps we could sell “silicism” as the generic term: “The cupertino effect is a type of silicism caused by the spelling checker of a word processor.”

But then what would be the specific name for an error caused by text scanning?

Another variant:

LORD BLESS THIS WOMAN IN EVERY WAY SHAPER FORM AND MANNER.

PPGs DBC500 is in no way shaper form or fashion and adhesion promoter it is simply clear basecoat,

It appears that the plan is pretty well envision in one way shaper form to add additional access point off the area where the terminal and current parking …

Certainly a restructuring, but it doesn’t make much sense. Except maybe in the last example, where it is talking about shaping the roadway?
.
(I checked for “way shaker form” but didn’t come up with anything.)

“Way she perform.” Funny, funny substitution for “way, shape, or form.”