Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
Surprisingly, this one was not in the eggcorn database and didn’t turn up on a search of the website (and neither did I find conscience for conscious or vice versa). For subconscience, google yields 51,200 hits, a wealth of examples, but I’ll only post 3:
Amazon.com: “Disturbing Books (They burrow into your subconscience!)” A list of products including, The Descent, God Is a Bullet, Crash: A Novel, The Wasp Factory: A Novel, The Wicker Man (Limited Edition)...
Test your subconscience This revolutionary test will expose your secret desires from your subconscience. Close you’re eyes (this is important) Type anything …img1.tapuz.co.il/forums/33044620.htm
What is the subconscience mind? I heArd that you could control your habits by listening to tapes at night, and although your asleep your subconscience mind …www.sleephomepages.org/discussions/basic/messages/msgs10896.html
Last edited by Techwreck (2007-05-12 08:23:57)
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Actually, the word pair (subconscience / subconscious) was listed in this posting under category 4. Words sometimes Mistaken for one another…
Paul Brians’ Common Errors in English Usage by jorkel Eggcornology 2 2007-04-25 11:28:25 by Lisa
Even so, no one really followed up on it.
You’ve given a few examples of the mistaken usage, and that’s a good start. I think what’s needed is an argument that proves that the usage is an eggcorn rather than a malapropism, a pun, a misspelling, or something else.
As a reminder, the key features of an eggcorn (that distinguish it from the other categories) are the following: 1. The usage is unintentional; 2. The usage “sounds like” another usage; and 3. The usage possesses a legitimate imagery that differs from the original usage. The first two are already apparent, but someone should really put forth a strong case for the imagery that might be involved.
Keep in mind that “conscience” refers to a moral capacity. The utterer must make this connection for the usage to qualify as an eggcorn rather than a malapropism.
Last edited by jorkel (2007-05-12 08:46:53)
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OK, here goes: conscience is also defined as “the awareness of a moral or ethical aspect to one’s conduct together with the urge to prefer right over wrong.” A reference to our subconscience could be a reference to that part of our conscience (or consciousness, as it were) which may be aware of the moral and/or ethical aspect to one’s conduct but which readily disregards that awareness because it lacks the urge to prefer right over wrong. Our subconscience could be interested only in satisfying the id (which is defined as that part of the psyche which “serves as the source of instinctual impulses and demands for immediate satisfaction of primitive needs). Therefore, a speaker could conceivably be using subconscience to reference the psyche which pulses just beneath our conscience, i.e., the psyche which seeks to satisfy primitive needs/impulses/demands even if those needs/impulses/demands are blatantly unethical or wrong. A user might, for example, reference his subconscience as he attempts to express feelings which may be unpopular or even taboo (e.g., “in my subconscience mind – or maybe subconsciencely? -, what I was really feeling or what I really wanted to do was…”).
So, in summary, subconscience might be the evil twin to subconscious (subconscious not being limited since underlying thoughts or feelings in the subconscious mind could be good or bad), and might be used most frequently as a substitute for subconscious when the speaker is describing a subconscious urge or thought that may be unpopular, depraved, or even downright evil. And the more I consider it, we don’t usually reference feelings or thoughts in our subconscious that are good & pure – usually we’re referencing some feeling or thought that we aren’t proud of and would rather NOT express publicly, possibly making the substitution of subconscience for subconscious much more statistically likely than I had first imagined.
Does any of this make sense to anyone other than me??
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I’ve almost got your drift, but it’s a bit strained, and might raise more questions than it answers. One could clearly argue that any person that knows the word “conscience” could modify it to describe a “subconscience”—and use it in a consistent way. The real leap of faith would be having the utterer mistakenly think that other people’s use of “subconscious” must really be that word “subconscience.” I guess it’s possible.
I’m guessing that any person smart enough to know the word “conscience” (and modify it) probably also knows the word “conscious.” (That isn’t necessarily an axiom with eggcorns, but usually a lesser-known word is replaced with a more-known word). There’s an outside chance that someone’s experience is so submersed in discussion of “conscience”—as they might be with intensive Bible study, say—that they truly aren’t as familiar with the term “conscious,” but I’m really straining to identify a scenario here.
So, it’s conceivable, and all it takes is one convincing example with enough context explained to prove out an eggcorn. But, I tend to be a master of self-deception when it comes to eggcorns, and it’s more a matter of what the linguistic judges think.
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I agree with jorkel. It’s not an eggcorn if you meant for it to have an alternative meaning.
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