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Chris -- 2018-04-11

#1 2018-09-15 17:21:19

David Bird
Eggcornista
From: The Hammer, Ontario
Registered: 2009-07-28
Posts: 1690

"Bed wraggled" for bedraggled

JonW719 wrote:

I was just remembering yet another word that I mispronounced in my mind, and that is bedraggled. I pronounced it BED-raggled and believed it meant the tousled (ragged?) way a person looks after sleeping.
Then it occurred to me that we may be on to a subcategory of eggcorn, one not caused by mishearing but by misreading. At least some of the words people have listed carried a distinct imagery that the reader extrapolated from the mispronunication, such as “bed-raggled.”
JonW719 (2008-08-14 17:57:56) Feeling quite combobulated

JonW is not alone. You can even hear how a bot might pronounce bedwraggled here.

we get this wonderful scene of Adjani completely out of her mind shuffling down the streets of Barbados in a bedwraggled black cloak, completely oblivious to Pinson’s calls for her.
film review

“Sit as far back as possible and shoot everything that moves, you don’t have to tell me twice.” He ran another hand through his bedwraggled hair.
collaborative fiction

My hair is sporting the bedwraggled look, thrown up in a ponytail with a dozen renegades, Medusa style.
author’s blog

Sighing, she shook her head, grabbed a brush and started to attack the bedwraggled mess that was her hair.
fanfic

He wore untidy, unkept clothes and his hair was a bit shaggy and bed wraggled.
fanfic

Two fer one in the last hit.

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#2 2018-09-15 19:44:56

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2714
Website

Re: "Bed wraggled" for bedraggled

Bed-raggled is one of my all-time favorites ―makes me happy every time I think of it―, and this new spelling of it is very welcome.
.
( Unkept is another Ken Lakritz one, from back in aughty-four: http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/forum/view … 4982#p4982 . The converse has also been discussed on Linguist List , in ought-six.)

Last edited by DavidTuggy (2018-09-15 20:05:03)


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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#3 2018-09-16 05:08:57

Dixon Wragg
Eggcornista
From: Cotati, California
Registered: 2008-07-04
Posts: 1375

Re: "Bed wraggled" for bedraggled

I was born bed Wraggled.

Sorry.

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#4 2018-09-16 11:04:40

kem
Eggcornista
From: Victoria, BC
Registered: 2007-08-28
Posts: 2851

Re: "Bed wraggled" for bedraggled

Not to throw water on this fire (OK, maybe a little), but what exactly does “wraggle” mean? I only know it from the phrase “wriggled and wraggled.” And there is the Scots/Irish ballad “Wraggle-taggle Gypsies”-but that may just be a misspelling (or regional orthographic variant) of “raggle.”


Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.

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#5 2018-09-16 12:58:39

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2714
Website

Re: "Bed wraggled" for bedraggled

I also am not at all sure that it is (or isn’t) a different lexeme, but the spelling is pleasurable ―and pleasurable in an eggcornish way― in any case, as it brings to mind, rather than rag and the associated ideas of being worn to shreds, unravelling or being torn into small usable pieces, the orthographical association of perhaps angry twisting with words like wring, wriggle, wrought (iron), wrest(le), wrench, wrangle, wrath and so forth.

Last edited by DavidTuggy (2018-09-18 13:06:35)


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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#6 2018-09-16 17:13:00

Dixon Wragg
Eggcornista
From: Cotati, California
Registered: 2008-07-04
Posts: 1375

Re: "Bed wraggled" for bedraggled

kem wrote:

(W)hat exactly does “wraggle” mean?

I’ve done a little research on the origins of my surname, which may shed some light on the meanings of some early forms of the words under discussion. “Wragg” is purportedly a spelling variant of the name “Ragg”, an old Yorkshire County name that was listed in the Domesday Book in 1086 CE. One source says “ragg” is from an Old English word meaning “judgment”. Digging a little deeper online, I found a few differing explanations of the origins of my name, most or all of which have something to do with Vikings. One source said Wragg is from “Wraghi”, an archaic Danish given name. Another said it means “sons of Ragna” (a Norwegian Viking who was active in northern England). Another said it was from a very old word meaning “the look on a dog’s face just before it bites”! Intrigued, I wondered if it may have some connection to the word “rage”. Looking up the etymology of “rage”, we find (in the Online Etymology Dictionary) “rage (n.). c. 1300, “madness, insanity; fit of frenzy; anger, wrath; fierceness in battle; violence of storm, fire, etc.,” from Old French rage, raige “spirit, passion, rage, fury, madness” (11c.), from Medieval Latin rabia, from Latin rabies “madness, rage, fury,” related to rabere “be mad, rave” (compare rabies, which originally had this sense), from PIE *rebh- “violent, impetuous”...”. So the roots of “Wragg” could go back through the Latin “rabies”, which indeed is connected to “the look on a dog’s face just before it bites”! I hypothesize that one or more of my early ancestors was known as “Mad Dog” (in their language, some form of “ragg”)!

All of this could possibly be connected to “wraggle/ragged”, etc. by the image of something that has been torn by the teeth of a mad dog. My memory banks also have coughed up an image of a dog entertaining itself by worrying an old rag, which would become ragged in that process. And, between “rabies” and “wraggle/ragged”, etc., we have the senses of “rage”, connected with battle, storms, etc., which may leave people and things in tatters.

Last edited by Dixon Wragg (2018-09-17 03:31:22)

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#7 2018-09-16 19:25:41

yanogator
Eggcornista
From: Ohio
Registered: 2007-06-07
Posts: 237

Re: "Bed wraggled" for bedraggled

By contrast, 10 seconds of research will reveal that Yanoshek is just a surname from the Hungarian given name Janos.

Boring old Bruce


“I always wanted to be somebody. I should have been more specific.” – Lily Tomlin

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#8 2018-09-16 20:25:32

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2714
Website

Re: "Bed wraggled" for bedraggled

Fear Wragg-narÓ§k.


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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#9 2018-09-17 03:27:36

Dixon Wragg
Eggcornista
From: Cotati, California
Registered: 2008-07-04
Posts: 1375

Re: "Bed wraggled" for bedraggled

Bruce and DavidT—LOL!

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#10 2018-09-19 20:40:54

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2714
Website

Re: "Bed wraggled" for bedraggled

It has occurred to me to wonder if anyone has ever heard the word bedridden pronounced [bi’drɪdn]. Seems like it ought to be possible for somebody to analyze and thus say it that way, but I do not remember ever hearing it, and barring a confession or a crow of discovery, it’s not the sort of thing you can look for on the Internet.
.
But a hypothetical verb bedride [bi’drayd] ought to mean something like ‘criticize (cf. deride?), wear down to/towards nothing’, or something that might fit at least some contexts where bedridden shows up.
.
( Bedrisory unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, does not show up.)

Last edited by DavidTuggy (2018-09-19 20:45:16)


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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#11 2020-05-15 03:54:13

Peter Forster
Eggcornista
From: UK
Registered: 2006-09-06
Posts: 1222

Re: "Bed wraggled" for bedraggled

I was about to suggest bed-ragged but am not at all surprised to find the ground already well-trampled. Glad I came though, if only for Dixon’s manic monicker deconstruction – fascinating! It has me wondering whether the words radge and radgie are playing any part here. Radgie means mad/crazy, and may derive from the Romany word raj, meaning much the same. Words of Romany origin are not uncommon in Northern England and the Borders. ‘Gadgie’, meaning a man but with differing local connotations, inevitably lures in that adjective to form ‘radgie gadgie’ – a bloke to avoid if at all possible.

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