Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
Here’s another one I was sure would be in the database, but have not found it, other than as counsel/council was in Paul Brian’s list . There are lots of examples, some repeated. I would guess it is standard for some who use it.
for the moment I’ll let you keep your own council. We have a long ride home
We are taught to keep our own council and—no matter what is happening at home—never let anyone see who we really are.
Madeline noticed a glow about her niece but held her council.
In order to achieve escape velocity we must learn to keep our own council, to move silently among doubters, to voice our plans among our allies,
... to keep our own council? What to keep our own council? What does it mean to be in that does it mean to be in that relationship
I shall not, however, raise objections to him deciding to hold his own council for now due to embarrassment towards the actions he was forced to take
Keeping (or holding) your own council ought to mean talking/debating/etc. with yourself alone rather than with other people. Keeping your own counsel should mean not giving your opinions and advice to other people. A council is likely to be where a leader seeks wise counsel; both the council and the counsel (whether words or a lawyer) are likely to try to influence decisions. Plenty of meaning overlap there to justify seeing it as an eggcorn, I think.
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Of course it is only the spelling that clues us in to the change. In the spoken language the two words are probably merged almost completely. (There are plenty of bigger changes in related entries that we consider to be “the same” word, e.g. giving it a single entry in the dictionary.)
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2024-07-11 18:00:12)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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Yes, I’d have assumed it was an early entry into the database too; is anyone adding anything there I wonder? I never bother looking.
I did have a quick browse for variants but found only this:
Boucher et al. Spermculture: improvement of bacteriological quality of samples by direct verbal countselling before semen collection.
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“Countselling”. I like it. Sounds like it ought to mean selling them one by one. If counting bacteria or sperm cells is a usual practice, they must indeed be valuable enough to buy and sell. I am a bit confused as to why or how direct verbal countselling, or counselling or whatever, whether before or after semen collection, would improve the quality.
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2024-07-12 11:44:59)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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Ran across another variant just now:
Truly,a saint has gone home,I always knew MR.Bevel to be a man of few words,one who kept to his own council,mildmannerd,and kindhearted,He will be missed
Yet, the young man kept to his own council for all his devotion to the gods
She kept to her own council when she chose her second husband.
Faye loved the Lord completely, kept to her own council, comforted others with her exceptional baking skills, made her own clothes, drapes …
This one sounds like the “council in your head” kind of meaning. Keeping to your own counsel would not work as well, for me, though I guess I could construe it sort of reasonably. In any case, it feels like a sort of blend with other “keep to” constructions like “keep things to yourself” or “keep to your own neighborhood”. Each to his own.
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2024-07-21 07:12:31)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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