Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
An evil eye is a malevolent glance. The origin of the expression “evil eye†is sometimes traced to occult practices, but it seems more likely that the phrase entered English via Jewish culture and the Bible (see Proverbs 23:6 and the parable of the employer in Matthew 20). In modern English the phrase usually occurs in the idiom “give X an evil eye.â€
On a few web sites “evil eye†is replaced with “eagle eye.†Perhaps they are thinking about the fear-inducing stare of a bald eagle. The idiom “keep an eagle eye on” may also be influencing the switch.
Examples:
From a book that is a collection of American Indian narratives: “The men turned and give him the eagle eye, but Niko kept walking and did not look back.â€
Comment on a music site: “I give him the eagle-eye “I’M ONTO YOU SCUMBAG” hard stare whenever I see him on the street or on the bus.â€
Comment on straightdope forum: “[The screech owl] used to like to sit on the curtain rods and when visitors came in, he’d swoop down on them all in a rush and startle them, then land on the back of a chair and give them the eagle eye as if warning them not to start any shit or else he’d rip their hair out.â€
Last edited by kem (2010-06-23 11:34:01)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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Very interesting.
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Re the Biblical roots, Mat. 6.22-23 is probably relevant as well—as part of the Sermon on the Mount it was certainly familiar to many generations of English speakers:
The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! (KJV)
There is argument among exegetes as to the meaning of the notion of the eye being evil here, but it likely means “unhealthy” (as opposed to “single” meaning “whole”, though also probaby “sincere, without duplicity”); yet it may imply (as does the Mat. 20 reference) an attitude of envy, which can indeed spread darkness on the soul. And envy does indeed easily become malevolent and spawn duplicity, so the ideas are all closely related.
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In any case, I would consider the examples you give to be pretty clearly blends with the “eagle-eye” family of usages; the notion of a malevolent glance overlaps greatly with the notion of a watchful or penetrating glance (looking at a situation with one’s scruten eyes), which of course involves a threat that if the one watched behaves wrongly he risks the malevolence, or at least the corrective action, of the watcher. (E.g. “give them the eagle eye as if warning them not to start any shit or else he’d rip their hair out.”)
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As you know, I do not consider status as a blend to mean ifso fatso that something cannot be an eggcorn, but in these cases I don’t see any clear reanalysis necessarily going on.
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2024-09-17 19:19:46)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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There were a number of examples I did not cite in which “give X the eagle eye” seemed to mean “watch X carefully.” I left these out because I wasn’t sure they were eggcorns. They may, as you say, be confused, eggcornish blends of “keep an eagle eye on” and “give X the evil eye.” But they may also be new coinages that don’t depend on “evil eye,” perhaps following the pattern of “keep an eye on” >> “give eye to” >> “give X an eye” >> “give X an eagle eye” or something similar.
We run into this dilemma quite often, don’t we? The most obvious substitutions are awkward ones, where a word is inserted in a tight idiomatic context where it doesn’t make much sense. These are the easiest substitutions to spot. But when the substitution makes a little sense, and therefore feels more like an eggcorn, we are less certain that a substitution has happened—the phrase may have been invented de novo.
Last edited by kem (2010-06-24 11:15:52)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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The most obvious substitutions are awkward ones, where a word is inserted in a tight idiomatic context where it doesn’t make much sense. These are the easiest substitutions to spot. But when the substitution makes a little sense, and therefore feels more like an eggcorn, we are less certain that a substitution has happened—the phrase may have been invented de novo.
Well said.
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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[Posted, then found Kem’s back-when post. (I know … search first, post later. Oh well.)
Here’s what I had posted. Maybe the back-and-forth-iness of the thing is the main newish idea?]
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This one feels like the real deal, but it’s an odd one, sort of in a different class from most eggcorns.
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My wife was showing me, on YouTube or something of the sort, and old Carol Burnett skit in which, at one point, Miss Burnett skewers the gentleman sitting next to her with an excellently executed theatrical glare/stare. Joy’s comment was,
There she goes, giving him the old eagle eye.
It moves me to wonder, how often does it not happen that one person says, and means, “the eagle eye” while another hears, and understands, “the evil eye”, and verce visa? The meanings are so close as to fit very many of the same situations. The poor sod at the wrong end of the eagle’s hawk-eyed (or the hawk’s eagle-eyed) stare may be a tasty morsel which is about to be ingested, or he might be a poor soul squirming under the evil eye, about to be immobilized and damned or otherwise damaged. Either way of seeing (scrutinizing? glaring balefully at) it fits pretty well.
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Neither phrase is non-standard, and though for me “the evil eye” is more expected in such contexts, the opposite seems to be true for my wife. It depends on your definitions, of course, but I would maintain that if my wife says, and means “give him the eagle eye” while I hear and understand “give him the evil eye”, an eggcorn has occurred. And the other way around, of course. I doesn’t really matter if neither one is the non-standard substitution for a standard word or phrase.
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Or does it?
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2024-09-18 15:33:09)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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My opinion, FWIW:
(1) “Evil eye” is the standard idiom.
(2) If your marriage depends on it, ignore (1).
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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Good advice! (1) You have confirmed my prejudices, so we must be right. (2) It doesn’t, thank God.
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2024-09-19 11:23:18)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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