Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
The Book of Common Prayer, it seems, contains the following famous passage:
… to join together this man and this woman in Holy matrimony; which is an honourable estate, instituted of God in the time of man’s innocence, signifying unto us the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and his Church; which Holy estate Christ adorned and beautified with his presence, and first miracle that he wrought.
In a few places on the Internet, the word beatify shows up in place of beautify :
which holy estate christ adorned and beatified with his presence
Beautified stikes me as somewhat redonedant following adorned , but maybe adorned meant something different back when the BCP wording was established. Beatified fits seamlessly (not to mention seemlily) into the context. I’m actually a little surprised there were not more hits. But beatify is a pretty archaic word for most people, which probably helps explain it.
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Anyhow, I see it as a nice eggcorn. I wonder if it has been laid elsewhere, or if the eggcorn in the other direction (beautify < beatify) shows up.
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Slightly relevant: Bless it be
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2023-04-27 13:23:32)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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A holy estate adorned and beautified by his presence? At first blush I would not believe that those could be the words or the sentiment. It was surely an eggcorn for beatified in the first instance. Amazing.
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It surprised me too! I ran across beautified , thought it strange, and went to check. Lo and behold, lots of sites had it that way, and only 3 or 4 had beatified . Do you have any sources more reliable over there, across the blessed and gorgeous pond, that have beatified ?
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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