Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
Ran across this today; as far as I see it has not yet been discussed here:
Maureen come back from crafts carrying a grasshopper for Alfred and found him stone dead – stiff as a post, kinda curled up in a feedle position.
[Stiff as a … what? Post somehow seems completely wrong. But anyway.]
[she] found him inconsolable, in the feedle position on the couch
drops Xtra large jar of pickles on my foot and proceeds to go limp, curling up on the floor in the feedle position, just glad the jar didn’t break, foot bleeding out
Much like being in the feeble position , I reckon, though feedle is a nonsense word for me. Still, it looks as if it ought to mean something between weak and ridiculous, and that meaning would be eggcornish in many cases.
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Feedle would, in American English, be pronounced pretty much identically to fetal . It has been used to substitute for it outside the phrase “fetal positionâ€:
UTERUS, site of embryo implatain and feedle development. cervix, constrictio0n around lower portion of uterus
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2019-09-23 01:04:03)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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It looks like a misspelling to me.
“I always wanted to be somebody. I should have been more specific.” – Lily Tomlin
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That it is, though the issue is what kind of a misspelling. It is somewhat unlikely as a qwerty-board finger-slip.
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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No, just spelling it like it sounds (in the Midwest, at least), like needle.
“I always wanted to be somebody. I should have been more specific.” – Lily Tomlin
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The pronunciation of “fetal” makes (some) sense when you consider that it is an oe ligature word that has lost its diphthong (like “economics,” “diarrhea,” “celiac”). But second language learners must agonize over why it is not pronounced like “metal” and “petal.”
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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I teach ESL, so I know that they quickly learn not to agonize over English spelling/pronunciation inconsistency. It doesn’t take long to realize that you just have to live with them.
“I always wanted to be somebody. I should have been more specific.” – Lily Tomlin
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