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Chris -- 2018-04-11
Came across this in a Thread post today:
Even the man who coined RICE in the 70s has recounted his original protocol with the emergence of new evidence. ( https://www.threads.net/@dr.susie.squat … 2s9XmaRhBx )
“Recounted” for “recanted” makes eggcornish sense. You can’t repent something unless you can remember it. And a “recount” raises the possibility of a new direction.
This substitution must be relatively common. But it’s hard to find examples because there are few word strings where one word is appropriate and the other isn’t. But here are a couple of other examples:
It was entitled ‘A Horrible Oath,’ and the description was accurate, for the signatory recounted all claims in Jesus Christ and any hope of Heaven, and devoted himself instead to the devil and all the torments of Hell. Self-published book at https://books.google.ca/books?id=BAknCA … &q&f=false
He recounted his confession in court. https://www.google.ca/books/edition/Vio … frontcover
Last edited by kem (2024-01-31 09:15:37)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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Under our noses.
A couple more:
[MLK was killed by the FBI]
The FBI has murdered black activists before, notably Fred Hampton
The alleged killed (James Earl Ray) recounted his confession as illegitimate
The gun used as evidence against him did not match the bullets found in MLK
Much better to be alleged killed than actually killed. I think.
The Archbishop was examining Luther, asking him once again to speak
plainly and clearly and to recount of his errors. You remember Luther’s famous
reply, […] I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand. I can do no other, so help me God.”
Luther knew if he wouldn’t recant, it would mean both his own death, and the beginnings of a deep divide in the Church. The next morning, he was summoned again from his cell. He was asked again if he would recount of his writings.
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2024-02-02 09:39:15)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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“Recant” seems like a strange word. “To sing back.” I looked up its etymology. A Latin borrowing from the early Renaissance, apparently. So the odd meaning of “disavow/retract” probably lies somewhere in the mists of Latin. The OED suggests that Latin writers might have calqued it from the Greek “palinodeo,” a term used to describe chorus responses or antiphonal songs. So the sense of “retract” that developed in the Latin matrix may have been a metaphorical application of a musical term.
Some early English authors reverted to the more literal sense. One of the (less well known) meanings of “recant” is “repeat/rehearse/tell over.” You can “recant a tale.” This meaning, the OED says, may have come about “by confusion with recount.” So the eggcorn “recount << recant,” which plays on the metaphorical “retract” sense of “recant,” may have been influenced by the modern obscurity of the “rehearse” sense of “recant.”
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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Buying something locally today I received the message, “We’re are you?” and was severely tempted to reply, “I am”, but managed to resist it. We’re all familiar with the greengrocers’ apostrophe, describing fruit’s and vegetable’s, and its possible influence upon the occasional writer who inserts a superstitious apostrophe before the ’s’ of any word ending in that consonant. But it’s not just ’s’. I recently came across the word ‘pain’t’!
Which brings us to recan’t. Perhaps we can once, but given the opportunity to reconsider perhaps we can’t.
He demanded on the phone that I recan’t my review of his store and service, but I refused.
And Luther was in the same position. He said, I understand that all I have to do is say I recan’t Everything I’ve said sorry won’t happen again,
OK, never mind, I recan’t my statement, I was thinking more about measureing toe, not toe change.
. They did not have a plea deal with those individuals, they did not have any cooperation by the attorney late in the game, perhaps they found information that they either recan’ted or changed their stories.”
DESPITE THE ABSENCE OF DNA EVIDENCE, AND THE COMPLETE RECAN’TING OF THEIR CONFESSIONS, A JURY CONVICTED THEM AND THEY WERE SENTENCED
i am recan’ting any such statements and there is no truth to any statement of mine that al jazeera plans to air .
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Ooo. Delicious. Another win for the apostrophe saltshaker.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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I love it, Peter! And I think I’ll hang on to your phrase “a superstitious apostrophe”.
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Anyway, so on the third unsuccessful try, one might say “Last time I recouldn’t, and once again, I recan’t.” (Despite several tries, I recouldn’t find “recouldn’t” on the Internet. Now it’s there, I guess.)
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Otherwise unnecessary repetition (repetititive redonedancy, as a favorite phrase of mine phrases it) naturally signifies re-enforcement or emphasis of some kind.
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Spanish (colloquial Mexican Spanish, though it seems to be more widespread than that) uses a prefix “re-” to mean “very, extremely”, in words like rebueno “very good” or resucio “very dirty”. They say it’s a shortening of the somewhat stronger “rete-”, which in turn is shortened from the even stronger “requete-” (rekete-), all meaning, more or less, “extremely (and let me emphasize to you how strongly extreme it is)”. But I wonder if, following the same sequence I experienced learning these when I went to Mexico, “re-” wasn’t first, and linked to the re- of “repetitivo”, and “rete-” and “requete-” were(n’t) re-re-emphatics built on it.
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What’s the link between repetition and negation? It’s there, I’m sure, but I don’t understand it. = “On second thought,” perhaps? As Ken puts it, ‘A “recount” raises the possibility of a new direction.’ Or, as Peter suggests, “given the opportunity to reconsider perhaps we can’t.”
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Why does “retract” not mean “pull a second time” instead of “pull back”?
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2024-02-12 15:44:15)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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