Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
I believe the correct idiom is “suffice it to say,” which what you’ll see if you look up “suffice” on Meriam-Webster.com. But “sufficed to say” and “suffice to say” sound pretty much the same when spoken, and they sort of make sense. I have seen these variations around, e.g.,
In the blogosphere:
I don’t feel like running through the whole list; sufficed to say that it includes about 10 guys . . .
http://mistakesports.blogspot.com/2009/ … dians.html
On Twitter:
Sufficed to say, I’m kinda worn out but it’s truly been an absolutely amazing work/stress free week. One more day in Paradise…
http://twitter.com/PenVsSword/status/6193841567
And elsewhere:
Suffice to say your bridal gown is not just a dress, it’s a creation.
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I think I can go one better:
Surface it to say that for maximum flexibility, be sure your laptop contains an expansion slot.
Surface it to say that it took a long time before we could pack up.
Surface it to say that such methods correspond with minor modifications, to those already described
Surface it to say at this point that the true arrow with a true antecedent will have a true consequent
Surface it to say that the runway was soon covered in tarmac and everyone was happy.
On the plain in Spain where it mainly rains.
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I think that you may have come to the eggcorn party, as my Irish friend says, with one hand as long as the other (to be intoned with a west Irish brogue that I can’t even begin to replicate). “Sufficed to say” doesn’t do much re-imaging and I can’t seem to connect up the semantics of “surface” and “suffice.”
Welcome to the forum, tripc.
Last edited by kem (2009-12-23 22:56:23)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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Surface it to say:
As a superficial explanation:
Without an in-depth analysis:
No?
On the plain in Spain where it mainly rains.
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This doesn’t jive with the traditional meaning of “suffice it to sayâ€, which was something like ‘it is enough to say X, (and any more would not only be unnecessary but might be offensive/tiresome/otherwise objectionable)’. The explanation that suffices will ideally be insightful, concise, and accurate, quite different from superficial.
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If some use “suffice it to say†nowadays —and I think some do— to mean something more like ‘speaking off the cuff’ or ‘as a first approximation’, then the idea of a superficial explanation would fit better.
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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How about the possibility that “surface it to say” is an idiom blend between “surfaced to say” and “suffice it to say”. So the surfacing imagery is not related to superficiality but to coming out into the open.
Juan’s last example of “surface it to say” has got to be a pun or a WTFT.
Kem, your link didn’t lead me anywhere – is there a fix?
Last edited by David Bird (2009-12-23 22:17:22)
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Kem, your link didn’t lead me anywhere – is there a fix?
Sorry. Fixed.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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Like Kem, I have trouble making this look eggcornical. The “superficial” argument seems a bit hypersubtle (though it’s certainly better to be hypersubtle about the superficial than the other way around), and the huge gap in semantics between “surface to say” and “suffice it to say” makes the blending theory seem unlikely to me.
But I’m grateful to Kem for introducing that Irish idiom to us. Are your hands of equal length when you come empty-handed because having something in one hand would seem to extend the length of that hand? Or is it because when you’re holding something, your hand is partially clenched and therefore looks shorter? My guess would be the latter, but it’s a great phrase in any case.
Incidentally, Kem’s (now-nonbroken) link gives a good example of just how goofy Google numbers have gotten. Kem’s query returns two pages of hits. At the top of the first you see this:
Results 1 – 10 of about 3,010,000 for “with one hand as long as the other”. (0.11 seconds)
At the top of the second you see this:
Results 11 – 12 of 12 for “with one hand as long as the other”. (0.12 seconds)
I have no idea what’s going on there, but I’m convinced that a world that had 3,009,988 more hits for “with one hand as long as the other” would be a better one than ours.
If you get rid of the first “with,” Google returns nearly 20 million hits for Kem’s query. I’m skeptical.
Last edited by patschwieterman (2009-12-24 10:53:37)
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Are your hands of equal length when you come empty-handed because having something in one hand would seem to extend the length of that hand?
It was explained to me as a story about arms—when you carry something in a bag, one arm be longer than tother. But this may be a folk etymology. Anyway, it seems to be one of the few IrEng idioms that hasn’t emigrated. Yet.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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Language Log notes a variation of “suffice it to say” in the form of suffusive to say. A cupertino/eggcorn mix is the general drift. Here’s another – or is it? If it weren’t so twisted phonetically, it would be a shoe-in. Four hits.
Service it to say that vanity is a major cause of avoiding sounding vain.
http://www.lumma.org/words/forums/CKL-Tuning97-00.txt
Service it to say is conceivably not too far in meaning from suffice it. The rarity does make cupertino a distinct possibility, though.
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“Service it to say” seems eggcornish to me. There are a few more hits without the ‘it’
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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I have the impression that “suffice to say” is considered just as correct as “suffice it to say”, at least in recent years. Am I wrong about that?
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Sounds like a job for N gram man
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I didn’t see, on a quick read-through, any mention of the possibility that the past participial *-ed* might be pronounced, mentally if not audibly, as a separate syllable, i.e. sufficèd to say . Maybe not, but it seems likely to me to be in some people’s minds.
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Somewhat supporting the idea is a round-tripping case:
Lead: Bless it are they that mourn for their gone. Chorus: Sweeping through the city. Lead: Bless it are the children of Isreal for their gone.
You served your time in hell. Now it’s time to serve in paradise. Bless it are the Peace Keepers for they are childern of God. R.I.P. Brother.
Bless it are those who had life around their mother till 14. I tell you, till 14 if you had mother living around you, living with you then you know
BLESSED [title of published poem]
Bless it be his heart that has given me another try.
Bless it be his hands that held my hand again.
Bless it be his arms that embraced me when I cried.
Bless it be his lips that kissed me once again.
Bless it be his eyes that looked into my soul.
The prevalence of sufficed rather than the bare (and more easily parsible) suffice fits with this possibility.
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2019-04-18 20:38:51)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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I’ve heard “sufficed” pronounced with both two syllables and three.
If you are confused about all of the blessèd pronunciation ambiguities in our belovèd mother tongue, especially the wretchèd question about separate syllables for -èd adjectives, turning them into three-leggèd and two-leggèd beasts, take a leaf from our learnèd language advisors and write it off to the doggèd stubborness of language history.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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Another I know I’ve seen, though I couldn’t easily find how to search for it, is Blasted! used as an interjection, where I would expect Blast it!
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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kem wrote:
If you are confused about all of the blessèd pronunciation ambiguities in our belovèd mother tongue, especially the wretchèd question about separate syllables for -èd adjectives, turning them into three-leggèd and two-leggèd beasts, take a leaf from our learnèd language advisors and write it off to the doggèd stubborness of language history.
Perhaps the ab-original one is nakèd , of which nake ‘strip’ (14th c) is, some have thought, a back-formation, “perhaps with misapprehension of the -d as a past tense suffix.†(Online Etymological Dictionary―didn’t they mean passive participial suffix?). If so, this may have been a sort of reverse process of the one we are talking about. (An Old English verb nacian is also cited.)
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I have heard it pronounced as a one-leggèd beast, and the effect is funny, forcing you to reconstruct nake . C. S. Lewis comments somewhere about the implication that the natural state for a human is to be clothed, that getting naked is almost like donning a costume.
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2019-06-17 08:06:50)
*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 I know I’ve seen, though I couldn’t easily find how to search for it, is Blasted used as an interjection, where I would expect Blast it
I found some, doggoned:
Blasted! I am Really a Superstar
He pulled out his old pocket watch and looked at the time. “Blasted, I am already late.
Blasted! I am feeling the same symptoms
Damnit no stores in oregon have this. BLASTED i never get anything good
The next one may well be someone purposefully trying to be funny, given the context, but the other two seem less likely. (They still might be bisyllabic and shortened from “I’ll be doggoned†rather than trisyllabic, misanalyzed from “Doggone itâ€)
Doggoned – I never thought of one! Speaking of rap – er – dogs… If you get a chance, check out the current issue of City Dog Magazine.
Well doggoned! I was wanting in for this one but I am pretty certain that I only have photos from Dinafem.
Doggoned what font should i write my essay in
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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