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#1 2019-09-17 09:28:08

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2714
Website

Feedle position

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.
.
Feedle would, in American English, be pronounced pretty much identically to fetal . It has been used to substitute for it outside the phrase “fetal position”:

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* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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#2 2019-09-20 08:00:23

yanogator
Eggcornista
From: Ohio
Registered: 2007-06-07
Posts: 237

Re: Feedle position

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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#3 2019-09-20 11:29:04

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2714
Website

Re: Feedle position

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* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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#4 2019-09-21 09:18:00

yanogator
Eggcornista
From: Ohio
Registered: 2007-06-07
Posts: 237

Re: Feedle position

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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#5 2019-09-22 14:08:23

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

Re: Feedle position

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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#6 2019-09-24 17:36:14

yanogator
Eggcornista
From: Ohio
Registered: 2007-06-07
Posts: 237

Re: Feedle position

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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