Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
“Relegate” and “regulate.” Both words are Latinisms of comparable vintage. A small spelling change will transform one word into the other. Both lie outside the lexical comfort range for many English speakers. And both have meanings that reference rules and duties. Ripe for eggcorning, right?
Right. I found evidence on the web that “regulate” is employed in contexts that would normally require “relegate.” Examples:
Linux interface forum: “I have my pieces and parts Unbuntu machine sitting on my desk and I’d like to regulate it to the floor.” (http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-244499.html)
Forum for typesetting: “I wanted [my font] to be somewhat childish, but not so much as to regulate it to hokey uses like sand and comic sands (fonts that I strongly dislike) are.” (http://www.typophile.com/node/16226)
Theology blog: “Only when men and women came to see work in its true light…would they organize it in such a way as to minimize its importance, to regulate it to the periphery of social life, and to install consumption in its place as the chief end of social existence.” (http://politicsofthecross.blogspot.com/)
Introduction to a poem: “However, as I was about to regulate it to the ‘recycle’ heap,...” (http://www.agentofchaos.com/a07_poems.html)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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I just found this one on an Amazon music chat forum: ”...the Starship had it’s moments even if it meant Grace Slick would be regulated to back-up role.”
Not surprisingly, “regulate” for “relegate” has been discussed here before, though for some reason it hasn’t been added to the eggcorn list (can’t something be done about that?).
I thought I’d resurrect this old thread for the enjoyment of anyone who’s interested.
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I wonder if the word “relocate” is close enough in meaning to “relegate” to lead to confusion – or to pass unobserved when “relegated” was apter.
Here’s another interpretation of relegate.
x86 CPU reliquary
My father started a hobby with MIDI keyboard compositions. This system was relicated to a “games” computer when he finally upgraded to a 486 system
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I don’t see anyone taking up the other eggcorn in Kem’s original post (not even when I searched from the home page). The font “comic sands” should be “comic sans” and it’s pretty easy to find other references to “sands-serif” fonts. (Many are puns, but many are not…)
A poll on the “Best Looking Sands Serif Typefaces” polldaddy.com/poll/1791071/
“Right now the button’s caption is Bold and Ms Sands Serif.” http://www.vbforums.com/archive/index.php/t-236929.html
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“Sands serif” is certainly a slip/malapropism. How would it be an eggcorn?
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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kem wrote:
“Sands serif” is certainly a slip/malapropism. How would it be an eggcorn?
Perhaps they’ve made a connection to Omar Serif and Lawrence of Arabia. But I’m here to post this, just in from The Onion
“There’s always a few kids in every class that stick out right away and, try as I may, there’s nothing that can be done to save them for eternal damnation,†said Reath, clarifying that in some rare instances, seemingly marked children had avoided hell and been regulated to purgatory instead.
I liked the blend here between regulations, damnation and relegation. Also piquant: to save them for eternal damnation.
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David Bird wrote:
Here’s another interpretation of relegate.
x86 CPU reliquary
My father started a hobby with MIDI keyboard compositions. This system was relicated to a “games” computer when he finally upgraded to a 486 system
I’d forgotten relicated . It strikes me as a dandy eggcorn possibility, and an intriguingly complex one. Things are typically relegated when rendered obsolete, displaced by something newer and better, so the process is easily seen as consigning the original thing to relic-hood. The displacement itself is also easily seen as a re-location, as DB suggests above.
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There are lots of Inet hits, and the majority of them seem to derive from relocate. Some might be either. E.g. the first below is pretty clearly relocation, the next two I can take either way.
My name is Supriya Vidwans, recently relicated to Jacksonville as I got a new job here. I am a Computer Engineer by profession
Anytime a teacher has committed any crime they are relicated to another part of the district.
I don’t know if it’s possible to be in charge, then be relicated to coaching someone elses stuff, as a position coach, not that that’s bad,
Anybody know if pronouncing relocated as [‘relÇkeytÇd] is common or standard in Indian or African Englishes? (There seemed to be a number of those provenances in the hits I skimmed through.) I can easily see how a learner of English as a Second Language might hear relegated and think they were hearing relocated .
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2018-10-28 18:07:51)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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Another possibility:
To start with, two towns have been identified for test
run, which if successful will be scaled-up and relicated to cover many
other towns with an objective to transform urban India by 2020.
Scaled up and replicated ? (Could still be relocated , too, of course.)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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DavidTuggy wrote:
Scaled up and replicated ?
Both terms may have some connection to reptiles in some folks’ minds. Wasn’t Godzilla scaled up (in two different ways)? And maybe replicated too, at least if he (she?) reproduced.
Last edited by Dixon Wragg (2018-10-29 12:53:55)
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Interesting. I’ve always thought of “relicate” as a standard English word, a verb built out of “relic.” I’ve heard it quite a bit in computer/tech contexts. Old hardware gets “relicated” when it’s taken out of service.
If it is a word, it doesn’t appear to have been lexicalized yet.
I hadn’t thought of the “eggcorn of relegate” possibility.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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