Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
You are not logged in.
The Eggcorn Forum and the Eggcorn Database are currently in the process of being converted into static sites.
Once the conversion is complete, all existing posts are expected to still be accessible at their original URLs. However, no new posts will be possible.
Feel free to comment on the relevant forum threads.
Chris -- 2025-05-10
Original sense seems to be masking a voice or other audible signal by adding a constant (droning) sound that prevents hearing the quieter. The eggcorn uses a metaphor of submerging this voice in water until it dies…not a huge difference in sound, but a very different meaning.
I read it in Seth Godin’s “Tribes” recently.
Offline
Most people would say that ‘drown out’ was the source and ‘drone out’ the putative eggcorn. The former is in dictionaries.
On the plain in Spain where it mainly rains.
Offline
Absolutely wonderful new eggcorn, polyparadigm, though perhaps not in the direction you intended. There are hundreds of hits for “to drone out the”. Lots as well for “droned out by”, but in the latter form one would need be skeptical, it being indistinguishable from a typo. “Drone out” for “drown out” is a new classic.
I am thrilled whenever I discover that I have been using an eggcorn for years. See hone in on. I hope you are equally elated.
Offline
David Bird wrote:
I am thrilled whenever I discover that I have been using an eggcorn for years. See hone in on.
Yeah, I too was confused about that one for years.
Welcome to the Eggcorn Forum, polyparadigm!
Last edited by Dixon Wragg (2018-02-10 19:40:04)
Offline