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
The woman in the photograph is the splitting image of you
the splitting image of his esteemed father.
she is the splitting image of her mother
this isn’t a typical shonen series where the kid has to be a splitting image of his
father.
As he is bringing back Angelica to her home, however, he meets her mother, Reitia – who is the splitting image of his former
wife.
A discussion here is very much apropos. It was started by the following query:
I understand that when trying to describe a person who has a resemblance to another, the common term is spitting image. As in: ¶ Person A is a spitting image of Person B. ¶ Here’s my issue, I’ve recently heard some people saying splitting image as opposed to spitting image and upon thinking about it, splitting image makes more sense. That may be because I am unaware of the etymology of spitting image. ¶ My thinking is that Person A looks so much like Person B, that they have appeared to “split” from the same person, hence splitting image. Wouldn’t you agree?
Yes, it is a reasonable understanding of it; it makes sense, which justifies eggcorn status for the new formation.
.
It seems that the earliest idea was one of being so like one’s progenitor as to apparently have been expectorated from his very mouth. One suggestion I did not see in the discussion (but I didn’t read it all) would be that the fairly well-attested early spelling spitten image is representing not a careless pronunciation of “spit and image” but a past participial version of spit , like the (also attested) spat image . Anyhow, spitting might be as reasonably a corruption of spitten as of spit and .
.
So, splitten image = “an image that has been split off” ? ( Splat image ? Probably not!)
.
I vaguely remember as a child coming to the eggcornish conclusion that “spitting image of X” meant “so much like X as to seem like a sculpture (image) that even spits the way X does.” Sort of equivalent to living image , I guess, just a little more colorful.
.
Lots of Internet hits seem to be literal, referring to software that splits an electronic image or things like that.
.
(#668 here might be relevant: it is about split milk .)
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2021-09-27 13:38:00)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
Offline
Re splitten image :
Defining and illustrating the “image of God” A. The “image of God” is not 1. resemblances of man to God – a “splitten image” 2. representations of God in man – a constructed image
This is quoted various places, but I am unsure who is being quoted. There are other attestations of the use of the phrase too, but many seem pun-like, made with awareness. The above probably falls into this class as well. Still, the parallelism of splitten with constructed is noteworthy.
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
Offline
Great eggcorns, guys.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
Offline