Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
I was listening to a report on NPR today, and I initially mistook “Cambridgeshire” for “Cambridge here.” I wonder if Brits encounter this problem all the time. Perhaps our British eggcorn expert Peter Forster will chime in.
Here’s an example of the reverse:
[PDF] Computing for Archaeologists in Cambridge: Frequently Asked QuestionsFile Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat – View as HTML
If you are a student you have been automatically registered. You can find. out what your email address will be before you arrive in Cambridge here: ...
www.arch.cam.ac.uk/comp/ac001/index.pdf – Similar pages
Staff in the Department of Archaeology and their areas of research …Amiria Henare. Assistant Curator for Anthropology. See a full list of archaeologists in Cambridge here. © 1997—2005 University of Cambridge …
www.arch.cam.ac.uk/research/staffres.html – 17k – Cached – Similar pages
Could this be one of those subliminal usages I keep finding? That is, a person living in Cambridge might occasionally hear mention of the broader region “Cambridgeshire” and, over time, begin to subliminally use “Cambridge here” in their speech when refering to Cambridge proper.
Last edited by jorkel (2007-05-01 09:32:03)
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In these two cases, I think the “here” is just a cue on the website—telling the reader where to go to get the information they want.
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Jorkel, though keen to confirm your sighting, and despite my prodigious capacity for self-deception, after a fairly exhaustive tour of the 1500 ghits for ‘in Cambridge here’ I can find no examples that contradict Pat’s interpretation – sorry.
(Eggspurt ? Me? I must insist upon my deservedly amateur status!)
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Thanks for trying Peter. I know there are a lot of ”-shires” out there, and didn’t know whether people were always getting confused. (I know it confused me briefly this morning). By the way, I like your neologism “eggspurt.” Seems that we might have to reserve that for anyone who exceeds, say, 500 posts?
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Well, gosh, I was thinking that 350 might be a good cut-off point for the “eggspurt” label….
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I thought I’d just chip in to mention that ”...sheer” is a rather modern way of saying county names**, and I don’t like it. The correct way is to use a shwa, but I think that the ”...sheer” pronunciation has developed because broadcasters etc. are worried that the shwa ending is too weak, and listeners might confuse the county with the town.
**In general speech, that is. Some dialects have done it for a long time, and I don’t mind that.
Adrian
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