Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
Hearing ‘tic’ and assuming ‘tick’ seems quite reasonable; clocks and ourselves have faces and the spasmodic jerk of the second hand is definitely tic-like. There are over 30,000 ghits for ‘facial tic’ and nearly a third of that number for the ‘tick’ variant.
You suddenly wake up to find that you have an extreme facial tick that causes … It occurs eight times an hour, but every time the facial tick happens your …
www.pauldavidson.net/2005/09/13/questions-part-xvi/ – 43k – Cached
I think it’s a facial tick…...have no idea what that is, just heard someone … isn’t a facial tick like where your cheek’ll twitch? like in the eppy that …
forums.usanetwork.com/lofiversion/index.php/t383857.html – 32k – Cached
He developed a facial tick—an outward sign of the tremendous stress he underwent in a classroom setting. “I realized he was falling through the cracks. ...
www.multnomah.edu/voice/0300/0300cover.html – 14k – Cached
I knew a guy who worked at the mall who has like this weird facial tick from venti light coffee 4 times a day. You gotta see the nerves twist and contort …
www.ihatestarbucks.com/bbs.php?i=4075 – 36k – Cached
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This could first be a simply spelling mistake: “tic” is sort of a stupid way to spell a word that rhymes with “stick” and “lick” and “kick” and “nick.” OK, OK, not stupid, not really, but certainly counterintuitive.
But I think your comments on the imagery are logical, and could be part of the argument to make this a true eggcorn. Of course, it’s hard to tell for sure what people are saying or thinking in their heads, and I bet it’s hard to find an example w/ enough extra exposition to make it clear there’s a “second hand” analogy going on; all our examples simply use the term, but don’t explain its origin (just define it, which doesn’t help w/ our imagery switch).
The “tick” a clock makes short, has brief pauses between, and is audibly similar in effect to a “tic” or spasmodic twitch’s visual effect. That could help make it an eggcorn, as well.
But again, it might be hard to find enough documentation for what’s going on in people’s heads. (We need someone to write to Dear Abby correcting her spelling of “tick” and explaining the clock thing.)
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We keep running into the same brick wall of not knowing exactly what the utterer is thinking. Personally, I like all the imagery that the two of you provide on this one. I also think it might be necessary for the eggcorn evaluators to invent/invoke a “reasonable person standard” for arbitrating these things because what other recourse is there?
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I’ve known this spelling mistake for many years and I’d hesitate before labelling it an eggcorn. However it’s categorised, it’s almost mainstream.
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What if we can make the image switch that’s necessary?
Well, I guess that wouldn’t work from a scholar’s or lexicographer’s point of view—there’s no independent occurrence to document.
But it’s still fun.
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