Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
You are not logged in.
Registrations are currently closed because of a technical problem. Please send email to
The forum administrator reserves the right to request users to plausibly demonstrate that they are real people with an interest in the topic of eggcorns. Otherwise they may be removed with no further justification. Likewise, accounts that have not been used for posting may be removed.
Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
On this forum, we’ve had occasion to mention the backformations “pea” and “cherry,” both of which started out as singular words with a terminal “s” sound that was interpreted as a plural.
Yesterday I was walking through the orchard of Victoria’s Government House and came across a quince. Hadn’t seen one these for many a year-quinces are a sort of legacy fruit in modern gardens and orchards. In the course of looking up information on the tree, I noticed that the word “quince” may also be a backformation. But backformed in the opposite direction. The name of the fruit started out in English as “coyn.” The OED speculates that its use as a collective singular (“the coyn aren’t ripe yet”) led to a postfix “s” that was eventually interpreted as a singular.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
Offline
Would have expected quinze or quinse , with the voiced z sound like pease has, if it began as a plural. (We don’t say bince as the plural of bin , and though bins is written with an s we pronounce that orthographic s as if it were z .) Any hint of a final nt ? ( Quints is practically if not absolutely identical in pronunciation to quince .)
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2020-08-26 11:03:30)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
Offline
I looked for the “nts” ending (i.e, “quints” in place of “quince”), but I couldn’t find many examples that were convincing slips. And the few I found were not likely to be eggcorns.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
Offline
Right. I was meaning, is there evidence that coyn might ever have been pronounced coynt , as that would make the voicelessness of the -ce ending perfectly normal for a plural.
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2020-08-29 19:15:00)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
Offline
No evidence. Here are the OED spelling records:
ME quence, ME queynce, ME qvynce, ME qwyns, ME (16 Scottish) quense, ME–15 quynce, ME–15 quyns, ME–15 quynse, ME–15 qwince, ME– quince, 15 qwynce, 15–16 quinse.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
Offline