Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
I found this in a letter in response to a newspaper article
(http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_kin … 70409.html):
Surely Mr. Kinsman, you aren’t suggesting that we surrender to this culture of lies and misinformation? We refused to buy into Bush’s lies concerning WMD in Iraq. Different issues, sure. But isn’t it the same principal?
I am new to the eggcorn “hunt”, but I suppose, since the sentence structure rules out the intended use of an adjective/attribute like principal, indeed the principle was meant here.
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Welcome to the eggcorn site. Let me see if I can help analyze the example you’ve given…
A key feature to an eggcorn is that the utterer understand the words he uses and he uses them in a way that makes contextual sense—different from a more standard prototype. (For instance, one may mistakenly think that “indelible ink” is actually “indullable ink” because it will not dull. Both usages make a sense, but the latter is generated unknowingly by misconstrueing the former).
In the current example “Isn’t it the same principal?,” it sounds as if the utterer fully intends the word “principle” and has simply misspelled it. There is the outside chance that the utterer uses “principal”—as a noun—meaning “a matter or thing of primary importance,” but the context doesn’t fully support this. Nice try anyway, perhaps your next submission will hit the mark.
Last edited by jorkel (2007-04-11 10:09:48)
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“It’s not school that I hate so much, its the principal of the thing.”- stupid old joke, but it still makes me laugh!
-A little comic relief. Keep looking!
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