Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
I can conceive of the genesis of this altered version through the canonical route of Things you read and understood but mispronounced in your mind. I first heard ne’er-do-well pronounced as “near-do-well” in a youtube account of the last days of Jim Morrison. There are more than 100 hits for near-do-wells on google. If it is an eggcorn for a ne’er-do-well, the modified sense might be of someone who falls short of doing well. It is a weak substitute, admittedly, for someone who never does well.
“That’s nice, Bayonne, New Jersey. Irving don”t we know somebody from Bayonne” meaning well at least your father is not a jobless near-do-well like my Irving. My father acknowledged that he had a friend who once worked in the naval depot in Bayonne during the war, meaning, I may be a near-do-well, jobless preson, but I know people who led successful lives and worked.
autobiography
The husband is a professional gambler by the name of Bradford Linley. He was a near-do-well from outside the the Byrd’s social circle.
online western
In short he was a near do well, a drunk, a womanizer and a steady visitor to the city jail.
biography
A lonely young orphaned girl is taken in by an Uncle who lives in a large house with his housekeeper and near-do-well son.
book review
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I can see it as a definite eggcorn, one step up from a ne’er-do-well. Next step up is an almost-do-well, then a barely-do-well. :)
“I always wanted to be somebody. I should have been more specific.” – Lily Tomlin
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My head explodes. Ah, if I’d only had that eggcorn before I wrote the book…
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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Bruce, the rare-do-well and the half-do-well fit in there south of the near-do-well.
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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David,
It’s a good thing that half- and rare-do-well don’t exist (yet, of course), because they would eventually lead to a never-do-well, perpetrated by a person totally oblivious to the origin of all of this. ;)
“I always wanted to be somebody. I should have been more specific.” – Lily Tomlin
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Good point. (Btw I just ran across, and loved, the spelling obilvious . Self-referential stupidities are the best!)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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Such near misses are often aimed at sybaritic prodigals, and perhaps it may indeed be difficult to live a simple praiseworthy life while being tormented by the imminent arrival of great wealth.
I was a yearbook editor, ran cross country, was on the tennis team (varsity- 4 years), drama- played a sailor in South Pacific, an heir-do-well drunk playboy in …
... and they were not the only ones in the hunt on the 5th of September the star named its prime suspect an heir do well known as leather apron …
Lucy is not an heir do well living in a box under a bridge he’s an American citizen paying payroll taxes and paying property taxes …
... to him you’re nothing but pirates and rebels who become notorious for your wicked deeds you want to rescue your brother an heir do well like …
(I’m unable to provide whole sentences – on each above example I get ‘page loading’ but it never does. I fear the arrival of one of my inadvertent absences.)
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An heir-do-well. Wonderful. And another n-borrower.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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