Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
Queen sac / sack
A piece sacrifice is a subject which comes up in chess when
a greater value piece is allowed to be captured by a lesser
value piece (for whatever strategic reason). It’s very common
in chess conversations to shorten the word “sacrifice” to “sac”
… and this can easily be misconstrued for “sack” … as in the
sports context of sacking the quarterback. I have personally
observed this misconception; It is not uncommon with novice
chess players overhearing conversations of advanced players.
It is worth pointing out that one player’s decision to “sac the
Queen” creates the opportunity for the other player to “sack the
Queen.” Anyone overhearing the conversation—without seeing
the context at the chess board—can easily construe the wrong
interpretation of the two and use it in the less standard usage
(sack) in future conversations.
Beyond my own personal observation of this, I didn’t search too
deeply for web examples of this—only so far as to dig up this
discussion:
https://forum.wordreference.com/threads … s.2016155/
By the way, other discussions involving “sac” or “sack” appear
on this Eggcorn website in other contexts, e.g., cul-de-sac, but
I don’t think the current meaning was ever truly addressed.
-Joe K.
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Nice one. Chess eggcorns have been a little thin on the ground in this Forum.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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