Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
Google counts on Oct 22, 2006
351,000,000 messenger … 5,500,000 “the messenger”
6,150,000 messager … 20,100 “the messager”—eggcorn?
A “messenger” is one who bears a message. [ME messangere, fr. OF messagier, fr. message]. If “messager” were to qualify as an eggcorn, it would be in spite of the fact that it circumvented the etymological progression and got straight to the message, if you will. What I am questioning here is whether “messager” could be an eggcorn of “messenger” even though it shares the same etymological root. My inclination is to say, “yes,” but I would be interested in hearing other peoples’ objections—with their explanations.
Examples:
The Daily Nightly – MSNBC.comAndrea Connie is no Powell she is just a messager for Cheney’s orders. Don’t expect to see her do the job of a Secretary of State. ...
dailynightly.msnbc.com/2006/07/on_the_road_wit.html – 27k – Cached – Similar pages
Holidays and Festivals – Bahá’ÃThe Baha’i Faith was preceded in Iran in 1844 by The Bab (“The Gate”) who prophesized about a messager of God. This was to be Baha’u’llah who was initially …
www.shagtown.com/days/bahai.html – 9k – Cached – Similar pages
welcome to janey’s junk drawer: Group 3 – Respond by March 26/04I personally believe that it could also be a messager, a soldier, a traveler, or anyone who had to travel a long long way. He rpobably has been rushing …
weblogs.elearning.ubc.ca/lew/archives/006059.html – 9k – Cached – Similar pages
The_Lighthouse.txt(“OK, boys, get that message first and then shoot the messager! ... But eventually, Synopsys saw the wisdom in not shooting the messager and instead, ...
www.deepchip.com/articles.asp?post=The_Lighthouse.txt – 9k – Cached – Similar pages
HELLAS:NET – WarfareWhile Alexander was sieging Tyre Darius send him a messager with a proposal: ... He sents a messager after Alexander who immedeatly stops his pursue of the …
monolith.dnsalias.org/~marsares/warfare/battle/gaugamel.html – 17k – Cached – Similar pages
letter.htmlThe Hor king, `white tent king’, heard about her beauty, and sent a messager to `Ling’ king for her. Upon the refusal, Hor king sent troops to attack `Ling’ ...
cc.purdue.edu/~wtv/tibet/letters.html – 9k – Cached – Similar pages
Story: The Use of Empty CityHe immidiately sent out a messager to call General ZHAO Yun back whom he had sent to some place. Some time later the news of the lost of Jie-Ting came. ...
www.chinapage.com/xwang/empty.html – 7k – Cached – Similar pages
Last edited by jorkel (2006-10-22 13:35:16)
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I would actually argue that “messager” isn’t an eggcorn. I usually think of eggcorns as reanalyses—reimaginings—of the meaning of the original word. But “messager” is the opposite: it’s a reinforcement of the original meaning of “messenger” as “one who bears a message.”
It’s still a great find. We English speakers have a really strong tendency to insert (or delete) l’s, m’s, n’s and to a lesser extent r’s in longish words. There’s actually a bit of commentary on this over at the Database article on inherit/inherent:
http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/english/550/inherit/
It’s amazing how common this kind of thing is. You can pick almost any long, somewhat obscure word, insert a superfluous m, n, or l into it, and then go find examples on the Web. For instance, just now I randomly picked “tabernacle.” I decided to go looking for “tabernancle,” and sure enough, I got 196 hits. And of course that extra “n” in “messenger” seems to have gotten there through the same process.
—Pat
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