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
Didn’t find this in the forum index, though tone death , including the immortal deftifying , is there.
I may start to believe you to be tune deaf if you think that was excellent.
Most of us are familiar with people who are tune deaf – these are the people who not only cannot sing in tune but are also unaware of that fact.
My whole family says I can’t sing, but I feel like I can Am I tune deaf? Am I okay? Idk anymore.
Some cognitive psychologist types apparently distinguish tune deafness (dysmelodia or dysmusia, the inability to recognize or distinguish tunes) from tone deafness (inability to distinguish one tone from another accurately). The next example is likely one of these.
A person who is tune deaf is unable to perceive pitch, reproduce melodies, or identify deviations in a melody. According to geneticist Dennis …
But most usages are pretty straightforward malaprops/eggcorns. (It is not a particularly likely typo.)
.
It makes pretty good sense in contexts where the issue is piano music or some other type where the instrument is not likely to be out of tune with itself, but the wrong tune or a mangled version of the tune may be played on it.
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2024-07-01 14:50:23)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
Offline
A nice find, David. And oddly enough I was reading the other day about certain characters with just this affliction:
Charles Lamb: “I am constitutionally susceptible of noises. A carpenter’s hammer, in a warm summer noon, will fret me into more than midsummer madness. But those unconnected, unset sounds are nothing to the measured malice of music.”
Alexander Pope: “Pope was so very insensible to the charms of music that he once asked Dr. Arbuthnot, whether the rapture which the company expressed upon hearing the compositions and performance of Handel did not proceed wholly from affectation.”
Isaac Newton: “Newton, hearing Handel play upon the harpsichord, could find nothing worth to remark but the elasticity of his fingers.”
Samuel Johnson: “To the delights of music, he was equally insensible: neither voice nor instrument, nor the harmony of concordant sounds, had power over his affections, or even engage his attention. Of music in general, he has been heard to say, “it excites in my mind no ideas, and hinders me from contemplating my own.”
“Perhaps the real truth about where Johnson stood in regard to music was revealed by Boswell:
‘We had the music of the bagpipe every day, at Armidale, Dunvegan, and Col. Dr. Johnson appeared fond of it, and often used to stand for some time with his ear close to the great drone.’”
Offline