Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
“Cole slaw” as “cold slop”. I’ve heard several kids use this thinking it’s the real name. I’m not sure if how things are written counts as eggcorns but I’ve seen “parents” written as “pairents” as in “pair-ents”.
Do either of these count?
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To my ear there is a fair bit of difference between ‘cole slaw’ and ‘cold slop’ but 945 google citations is the tip of a pretty big iceberg – I’d say it must be an eggcorn, though I have a feeling that we eggcorn-hunters make an unconscious distinction between eggcorns emanating from adults and the songless mondegreens of infants and juveniles…
You reminded me that one of my kids used to call “coleslaw”, COLD SLOP. ... LOL And, of course, even though that was years ago, we still call it cold slop. ...
blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=7722&blogID=201223299&Mytoken=3EE5BE… – 24k – Supplemental Result – Cached
On a related cabbagey note, when my twins were little, they thought coleslaw was spelled “cold slop”- wouldn’t touch it then, and still won’t 20 years later …
www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=56287&page=6 – 93k – Supplemental Result – Cached
‘Pairents’ does have a certain appeal, but can we believe that someone unfamiliar with the spelling of the word ‘parents’ spells the word ‘pair’ correctly? Perhaps so – though many have difficulty with spelling, 2,540 ghits is quite compelling…
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I think “pairents” could be a legitimate eggcorn for “parents”. It seems unlikely that someone would misspell the latter in such a fashion without making some association with “pair.” (However, I don’t know of any slang terms for “parents” that would also pick up on that observation—as such slang would reinforce the eggcorn).
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Sorry to whip out the predictable “typo!” argument, but many of the google references I see to “pairents” are written by otherwise atrocious spellers. I’ll buy the “cold slop” thing (but will have trouble eating it from now on – thanks a lot), but I’m skeptical of “pairents.”
What gets me is that it seems like a pretty sophisticated word association for very young children to make: “I have two parents. That means there’s a pair of them. Oh – I get it: “pair-ents!” And early childhood would have to be the time any native speaker would make this mistake.
I would add that unlike “low [lo] and behold,” “coming down the pipe [pike],” and “a mute [moot] point” the word “parent” is an extremely common term. The chances of someone being so functionally illiterate that he can’t spell “parent” and at the same time having been imaginative enough as a child to eggcorn the term strke me as slim.
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