Eggcorn Forum

Discussions about eggcorns and related topics

You are not logged in.

Announcement

Registrations are currently closed because of a technical problem. Please send email to if you wish to register.

The forum administrator reserves the right to request users to plausibly demonstrate that they are real people with an interest in the topic of eggcorns. Otherwise they may be removed with no further justification. Likewise, accounts that have not been used for posting may be removed.

Thanks for your understanding.

Chris -- 2018-04-11

#1 2018-11-25 05:25:33

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

"persec" for "parsec"

Recently I encountered this online:

It’s been rendered as par-secs, perhaps a reference to seconds.
FB discussion

This got me curious. Looking up “parsec’ in The Online Etymology Dictionary yielded this:

interstellar distance measure, 1913, from first elements of parallax second. It is the distance at which an object has parallax (viewed from Earth) of one second of arc, or about 3.26 light-years.

Space and time being, in some sense, aspects of the same thing (see Einstein’s relativity theories), it’s no surprise that measures of the two things can become intertwined, especially when we’re talking about astronomical distances. Hence, people commonly misconstrue the light-year as a measure of time. So it’s easy to imagine that some people might think “parsec” is a measure of time, or at least based upon the distance something travels in a second, in the same way a light-year is based upon the distance light travels in a year. In this scenario, the “par” in parsec (short for parallax) gets confused with “per” as in ”[some distance] per second”. If this is indeed how some people are construing it, it’s an eggcorn.

Studying emission lines…they found that the gaseous emission region is as small as a few persecs in radius.
physics paper

I need a ship that can do the kessel run in a lot less than 12 persecs.
nerd discussion

MUSH T-Shirt Kessel Run 12 Persecs Millenium Falcon
clothing catalog

Clearly, if the creation rate of technological civlllzatlon Is anywhere near 2×10[to the]-11 and L is as much as 10 persecs, then the poaching fraction A must be small.
astronomy paper

.

Offline

 

#2 2018-11-30 12:16:57

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

Re: "persec" for "parsec"

A plausible eggcornish replacement.


Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.

Offline

 

Board footer

Powered by PunBB
PunBB is © 2002–2005 Rickard Andersson
Individual posters retain the copyright to their posts.

RSS feeds: active topicsall new posts