Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
I just saw “jump this hurtle” in an email, and found about 90 hits for “jump the hurtle”:
Anything between Apollo Starbuck would have to jump the hurtle of Zack first and foremost.
http://mboard.scifi.com/showflat.php?Ca … art=7&vc=1
But the one that I felt best about was the one that I prepared well for and had
to jump the hurtle of real rejection with. Your preparation is really …
www.angelfire.com/stars4/kswiesner/FDFAQs4.html
.. description, etc. When I have writer’s block I usually just write. I keep
writing and writing until I jump the hurtle. I write in …
www.ecdestiny.com/forums/index.php?act= … r&f=7&t=68
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I thought I’d bring this one back up from an opposite point of view: “hurtling towards” vs. “hurdling towards”. I confess I’ve been a carrier of the “hurdling towards” eggcorn because I never knew the original. The words are basically homophones and “hurdling”, as in “hurdling towards disaster”, creates a perfectly acceptable image of tumbling quickly towards something. A few examples from about 2000 hits:
If a train is hurdling towards you, no amount of belief or DISbelief is … You can say to yourself ALL you want, “A train is NOT hurdling towards me,” but …
sg.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071022231139AAKfynj – 61k –
When the determination of both men sends them hurdling towards a violent confrontation, the power of the law will clash with the pride of the streets in the …
www.blockbuster.com/catalog/movieDetails/244243 – 23k
If I saw a giant asteroid hurdling towards earth, I wouldn’t want to sand in line to get hit. I’d start telling everyone to get the hell away. ...
forums.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?t=92845&page=100 – 97k –
I believe that although at the present time things appear to hurdling towards the apocalypse, the fact that some remnants of a democracy still exist in this …
bothsides.humanbeams.com/index.php/bsn/tellafriend/358/ – 37k
Now that I understand the original “hurtling”, I get quite a bit of amusement from many of the hits, especially the one’s concerning trains and other objects as I consider what it would look like if they were actually hurdling! This evokes new understanding of the shear determination involved, all these obstacles overcome.
As a possibly helpful aside, I got good results with google by searching “hurdling towards” and specifying to exclude results that included any of the following words: race, track, field, olympics or goal. “Hurdling towards disaster” restricted the results to less than 6 returns. As you can see above, there are many other examples of what things can hurdle towards. What do you think?
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The reverse usage that booboo suggests certainly sounds like an eggcorn to me. The etymologies of “hurtle” and “hurdle” seem distinct, as do their meanings: leaping vs. hurling. (It’s amazing how we eggcorn hunters sometimes overlook the reverse word substitution as a possible eggcorn source. I do it all the time).
I think the example “hurdling toward disaster” conjures up the notion that certain events are going to take place regardless of what (hurdles) might get in the way. It feeds into the somewhat idiomatic notion of “being on a collision course with disaster”
Nice reversal booboo.
Last edited by jorkel (2007-11-18 07:13:15)
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