Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
That’s an awesome story. It is certainly possible to claim your find as an eggcorn for the very reason you cited: that everyone in the company has a “position” therein. The usage, however, seems a little borderline, but I like it!
My second thought is this: If you were to misspell the word “possession” as “posession”—or some other variant—would the spell-checker replace it with “position” (and not notify you first)? This is something you could run a test on at work. The alternative, of course, would be to go ask the person who made the mistake in the first place!! (Ha ha!)
My third thought is that the person who wrote the Email more often uses the word “position” than “possession,” so the former word worked its way into the message on a subconscious level.
My final thought is this: If you could post a few of the examples that you found on the web, you might be able to demonstrate the eggcorn usage with contextual clues. Somewhere between two and eight examples should be plenty.
By the bye, I just can’t get the image of the big boss on the TV show “The office” making the mistake you cited here! (LOL)
Last edited by jorkel (2007-02-20 10:30:23)
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