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Chris -- 2018-04-11
This is from an online newsletter I got this morning from a bottle supply company. Larry
“A few hours ago I was sitting on the deck of the largest American chartered cruise ship, “The Pride of Hawaii.†I was memorized as the ship slowly cruised past the beautiful Napoli coast of Kauai.”
Also, his ‘Napoli’ coast, transposed from the Mediterranean to the Pacific is actually the Napali Coast. And this newsletter was from the CEO of the company!
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This turns out to be really common. I googled “I was memorized” after seeing your post, and got 36,000 raw hits; I looked at the first 30 or so, and they’re almost all examples of the substitution you highlighted.
Despite its wide occurrence, this use of “memorized” hasn’t yet made its way into Paul Brians’ very useful “Common Errors in English” website (which is here: http://wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html#m).
Eggcorn or malaprop? “To memorize” is so common that you have to assume that nearly everyone using it is aware of its usual meaning, but it’s really hard for me to believe that these writers are consciously making a connection between the typical meaning and this particular usage. I think it’s a malaprop. But there is a weird sort of poetic logic in the idea that a landscape that mesmerizes you is one that will hold you in its own memory.
(Incidentally, Prof. Brians insists on his website that one should write “Web site” or—less formally—“Website.” I respectfully disagree.)
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