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Chris -- 2018-04-11
I notice that the substitution of bare –> bear is missing one very important example: “to bear one’s soul”! It’s ridiculously common — google gave me these:
http://poetscorner.com/b2/b2print.php?p=3553
http://www.amazon.com/Drama-City-George … 0316608211
http://blobolobolob.blogspot.com/2005/0 … -soul.html
http://www.theforumsite.com/users/bravo … urnal/8890
Could be in some cases a misspelling, but the sheer amount of instances (“bear my soul” gives me almost as many hits as “bare my soul”) suggests otherwise. Similarly, while some people are using it as a witticism…
http://kristinamusic.com/journal/?m=200601
...again, you wouldn’t expect a pun to be anywhere as common as the correct spelling.
Unlike the other examples in , it doesn’t seem to be referencing bear, the animal, but rather bear as in a burden. Which does seem to make a little sense—the writer’s soul is weighing heavily upon them, and they feel that they have to write about it to lighten the load!
Last edited by egg_corner (2006-10-20 13:22:21)
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I didn’t believe it until I checked for myself…
Google counts on Oct. 20, 2006:
53,000 “Bare my soul”
41,600 “Bear my soul”—eggcorn
Just like egg_corner says: it’s almost as common as the original!
By the way, another sense of “bear” is found in the right to “bear arms” (which some kids think is the right to “bare arms”) ...an eggcorn in the opposite direction from the current discussion. See my recent post on Students’ Accounts of History…
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Check out this variation:
But this wolf didn’t bear his teeth and growl aggressively.
article
“Bearing” one’s teeth gives a good image of a wild animal such as a bear baring its teeth—especially in the context of talking about another carnivore, as in this example.
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