Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
This one came to me orally from a hillbilly woman who worked for us down in the southwest Missouri Ozarks. She was late for work one morning and explained her tardiness by saying, “I would’ve been on time, but somebody ciphered the gas out’n my car.”
Since the oil companies are “ciphering” the gas out of our cars today with their higher pricing numbers, I was wondering if this would qualify as an eggcorn.
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Welcome to the Eggcorn forum Mike. Your example is probably not an eggcorn because the word “cipher” is not literally intended. For instance, if you were to replace it with the word “code” it would still make no sense at all. So, the critical element that is missing here is a secondary imagery which provides sense to the expression.
It’s an amusing story, nonetheless. Might qualify as a malapropism.
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This could be an emerging eggcorn from a generation that is more interested in pop music and videos than books:
‘drumming’ instead of ‘drubbing’.
The source sentence, opening an entry in a weblog of political commentary that contains none of the keyboarding mistakes typical of the poster when he is in a rush, reads “Provincial New Democrat leader Carole James has taken a drumming in the newspapers for her decision to oppose the Gateway Program.” (http://www.publiceyeonline.com/archives/002678.html)
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Wouldn’t it be more likely that the Ozark woman was more familiar with cipher as meaning “zero, nothing,” and not with the more technical sense of “code, encryption.” So when she says that some “ciphered” the gas from her car, she probably meant that they emptied her tank. Making it a real eggcorn.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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You’re absolutely right, kem. I forgot about that meaning.
Although I sometimes harp about the need for posters to explain both the old and the new imagery of a proposed eggcorn—which might have helped here—I certainly don’t expect new posters to know of this preference. But this isn’t the first time where I’ve drawn a complete blank on a meaning.
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I found Kem’s suggestion absolutely ingenious, and it sent me to the library and the Dictionary of American Regional English. They do have an entry on “cipher” in the sense of “nothing, zero.” This use is apparently most common in New England, and there’s a light sprinkling all the way across the Midwest, and even out to the West. It’s apparently very uncommon in the South, however; the Missouri Ozarks appear to sit right on the edge of the word’s range. So it’s possible, at any rate, that someone from there could know this. But the article also noted that in a survey done in 1970, 90% of informants using “cipher” in this way were “old.” And my impression is that this use of “cipher” is really old-fashioned. I wonder how many non-elderly people nowadays would be likely to be thinking of the “nothing” meaning of the word on a day to day basis.
Also, are there really Americans out there who know this use of “cipher” but are unfamiliar with the word “siphon”? That’s the real deal-breaker for me—this use of “cipher” is pretty rare, but “siphon” is quite common. We’ve occasionally seen a few convincing examples of “reverse eggcorns” like this in which the reshaping uses a word more uncommon than the original, but I’m a bit skeptical in this case. I’m leaning towards malapropism unless someone can convince me that the “nothing” use of “cipher” really is common in the Ozarks (or anywhere else in the US, really) today.
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Thanks for the welcome. I’m hoping to make more submissions in the future, and I’ll try to be more diligent in providing background for the candidates. I have no idea whether the Ozarks woman was aware of the “zero” meaning of “cipher” when she made her comment. [Many Ozarkers use the term “ought” to mean “zero,” as in “He was born in 19 Ought 6,” or, “He used 3 Ought wire to run electricity to his house.”] She was about 50 years old at the time. I would guess that she did not use “cipher” in that sense in her vocabulary. However, I feel certain that she was using it exactly the same way as her parents and grandparents used it. She probably attended the same one-room schoolhouse they attended (since she was still living in the same house they had lived in). Her usage, then, was a reflection of theirs (just as her use of “ain’t” was) and was not likely built upon meaning at all. I’ll be sending along some other of this lady’s sayings.
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I spent my childhood in Nebraska, and my mother’s family was from Missouri. And I grew up knowing that “cipher” meant “zero.” So the term may well have been current in Missouri. I had the feeling when I was young that the word was a bit old-fashioned, something my parents would know about, but not my classmates. Schoolmarm language, if you like. My first serious encounter with the word “siphon,” on the other hand, came in my teen years, during the late 1950s, packaged with the car culture of adolescent boys (a mouthful of gasoline is a potent learning reinforcement). My familiarity with “cipher,” on the other hand, goes back to my childhood.
Patrick’s point about the relative familiarity of siphon and cipher is bang on, of course. What counts, however, is the contour of familiarity in the speaker, not in the hearer or in the forum posters. The word “siphon” could well have thrown a linguistic curve to the speaker (or to the older person she learned it from). I find it interesting that the speaker was a woman, perhaps more familiar with the language games of a one-room schoolhouse than those of a chop shop or or a physics class.
I remember, by the way, that the term “cipher,” was occasionally used as an insult in the fifties—someone who had no clue was a “real cipher.” I have heard the term used in relation to a recent U. S. president, but I’m not sure what meaning it might have conveyed to those who heard it.
Last edited by kem (2007-10-28 01:25:52)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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I think the etymology of this use of “cipher” is fascinating. However, when does vernacular become a malapropism? To people in that region, “siphon” probably sounds just as silly or strange as the other does to us.
[Many Ozarkers use the term “ought†to mean “zero,†as in “He was born in 19 Ought 6,†or, “He used 3 Ought wire to run electricity to his house.â€]
I wonder if this is a variation of the British “nought” for “zero”?
Last edited by Brooksie99 (2007-10-28 09:31:37)
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Brooksie99 wrote:
To people in that region, “siphon†probably sounds just as silly or strange as the other does to us.
I’ve never been in the Ozarks and don’t know anything about Ozark English, but I’d be surprised to discover that the word “siphon” sounds outlandish to many contemporary residents of the region. Obviously, if anyone can present any solid evidence to the contrary I’ll have to change my tune.
I agree of course with Kem that the real test of eggcornicity is what a speaker/writer was thinking. But in the absence of access to that kind of info, the best we can usually do here on the forum is to calculate probabilities. And this one still seems unlikely to me.
The best argument for eggcorn status remains Kem’s—the idea that the speaker has taken the “zero” meaning of the word “cipher” and has then verbed it to mean “to reduce to zero.” In my mind I’m asking myself, “What kinds of circumstances would we need for this to be a likely outcome?” First we need a speaker in her fifties in the southwestern Ozarks who knows the unusual “zero” meaning of “cipher”—a meaning that’s very uncommon today and not particularly associated with the Ozarks. And then we need that person to be unfamiliar with the common word “siphon.” And then we need her to decide to verb that unusual meaning of the noun “cipher.” We’ve discussed the verbing of nouns a few times over the years here on the forum, and from what I’ve seen, the verbing of a rare noun/meaning is pretty unusual; that sort of treatment is more likely to be accorded common, familiar words.
I’ll readily concede that the alignment of this set of conditions isn’t impossible in the mind of one speaker. But I’m not sure it’s likely, either. (And, personally, I’m much more interested in eggcorns that are reproducible—ones that either seem to spread among members of a community (however defined) or spontaneously appear in speakers who don’t share any visible association.)
One thing odd about this longish thread is that no one so far seems to have gone out looking for other instances of “ciphering gas” or anything related to it. I found about 40 instances of the latter phrase. It’s hard to pinpoint any of them geographically, though I did notice that one use of it occurs in an interview with Laz Pina, a member of the band Ill Nino—he was born in New York, lives in NJ, and is bilingual in English and Spanish. NYC doesn’t seem to be one of the places where the “nothing” meaning of “cipher” is common, but then again “ciphering” here could be a transcription error, too. In any case, we haven’t really done much work toward providing evidence one way or the other.
It also occurred to me that if people are indeed verbing “cipher” in a way that means “to reduce to zero,” then it should be occurring in circumstances that have nothing to do with siphoning per se. Are people out there somewhere ciphering their credit debt? Or ciphering their savings accounts? Or ciphering their apartments prior to moving? If so, then I think a very strong case could be built for Kem’s interpretation. So far, I haven’t found an example, but I only spent a couple of minutes trying things. On the other hand, if all the occurrences found could just be substitutions for “siphoning,” then I’ll continue to feel that the present argument for eggcornicity is just too elaborate to be likely.
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Pat writes:
One thing odd about this longish thread is that no one so far seems to have gone out looking for other instances of “ciphering gas†or anything related to it.
Amen. I think we sometimes spend a lot of time postulating explanations when the data is right out there waiting to be collected!
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I’ve always been in love with the IDEA of running away though, and if I ever learn how to cipher gas without killing myself I still might. ...
www.associatedcontent.com/article/51914 … tml?page=2 – 46k – Cached – Similar pages
I can even cipher gas if I have to….don’t ask how I learned that! We decided that if they have to evacuate to a shelter, Trooper will be elevated to the …
www.freelists.org/archives/tri-family/0 … 00006.html – 9k – Cached – Similar pages
Ok… well I’m at my grandmas house and my brother and my cousin were mowing the grass when they ran out of gas.. so they decided to cipher gas they tried …
www.xanga.com/fairlywanted – 30k – Cached – Similar pages
For what it’s worth, “ciphering”, as in “making a mathematical calculation” was forever memorialized by the T.V. show “The Beverly Hillbillys”. Said hillbilly Jethro would show off his talents to the city folk by practicing his cipherin’. Perhaps these eggcorners were subtracting gas from the tank!
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You’ll find many more instances of the mistake, booboo, if you search Google using the alternate spelling: “cypher gas.” It appears that we have a dozen or so unique instances on the net of the substitution of “cypher/cipher” for “siphon” in relation to the transfer of gasoline. Not a lot, but enough to indicate that something odd is happening out there.
Patrick understood my phrase “contour of familiarity” to be a comment about “what a speaker/writer was thinking.” I’m not sure these are the same thing. What level of intentionality, I wonder, is required to make a speech event an eggcorn? If the Ozark woman had heard someone else use the phrase, and she was just replicating the mistake, she might have no internal imagery associated with the phrase—only an ignorance of the correct phrase would be required. I’m prepared to believe that all the web instances of the candidate phrase are examples of this secondary, derived mode. They would not require a transfer of imagery between “cipher” (meaning zero) and “siphon,” just a replication of a low-frequency error of speech.
The issue of intentionality in the substitution imagery has to be pushed back, as it does for all eggcorns, to the person(s) who first made the mistake. We don’t know how far back the siphon/cipher error reaches, but we can reasonably posit that the first person to make the substitution did it after the year 1900, in the age of the automobile, because all the examples seem to relate to siphoning gas from a car. Underlining this assumption is the history of the word “siphon:” if you check the OED, you’ll note that “siphon,” derived from the Greek word for “pipe,” is used only in scientific contexts before the twentieth century, and that the verbal form, which we are dealing with here, has no recorded exemplars before the mid-1800s. It is probable that no one but a scientist or natural philosopher used the word before the early part of the twentieth century, and it is improbable that someone with the erudition of a scientist would confuse the two words. In contrast, “cipher,” meaning “zero,” is both old (Shakespeare used it several times) and popular, and the term remained a part of common speech until the early part of the twentieth century. This suggests that the mistake may have originated in a window of time, the early twentieth century, where “cipher” was much more a part of popular speech than “siphon,” and that the first person(s) to make the error borrowed the imagery of “cipher” to close the eggcorn loop.
Last edited by kem (2007-10-30 00:39:10)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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I agree that to over-attribute both the substance and frequency of imagery in the mind of an eggcorn user is to err, but so is to under-attribute. True, short of first person surveys, we can only guess- but it is an educated guess, not a blind one. The hypothesis of alternate imagery involvement with eggcorn usage is proved, at least anecdotally by first-hand testimony and surveys. For example, I overheard the use of the term “ramsack” for “ransack”. I immediately wondered if the imagery involved that of a ram tearing through a house, destroying items, etc. So I asked the user, “You mean, ransack?” “Is that what it is?”, she asked. She had always thought it was “ramsack”. “What image do you think of when you say ramsack?” I asked. The very same image I postulated. Now, as with all models, they are created to explain phenomena and make predictions, and are useful until they cease to do so. The imagery model works very well for me. I would challenge the notion that merely ignorance of the original phrase is required. I believe our minds fill in these gaps with something that makes sense, something almost always associated with an image. Often, it is very obvious what the image must be, say, in the example “it donged on me” for “it dawned on me”. The image of a bell or a gong is inescapable to me, though I would cheerfully defer to any first-hand information or survey. True, there are other eggcorns where speculation has very little assurance, but I think if you browse through the eggcorns, you’ll see they are in the minority.
I suppose we could cut to the chase/cheese(shaky imagery assurance on this one, but good speculations) by simply asking the user.
We may be in much more agreement than I think, when I consider your very clever theory of considering the context of the time in which the eggcorn first appeared. You seem to have no problem with the issue of imagery substitution in that case, nor do I think you should- it’s a brilliant concept. Where we may begin to differ is on the issue current users. While I oblige you the fact that many will follow the error of an original eggcorn utterer, I don’t believe that it “turns off” imagery, especially if the eggcorn has strong imagery assosciated with it. True, cipher is very elusive in this matter, but that is the fun of the forum; seeing that if we put our minds together, can we discover any truth to help ascertain the validity of a submission? I think there is much more substance to the imagery concept than you are giving it credit for.
So, sorry, please forgive me if I seem pedantic. I’ve really enjoyed the banter about your submission and look forward to your future ones. One question, though, did you consider any further the use of “cipher” in the aspect of performing a mathematical calculation? That, too, ties in fairly neatly to the “20 gallons, take away 5, leaves 15” thought process of siphoning.
Last edited by booboo (2007-10-31 20:39:32)
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It’s plausible the counting sense of “to cipher” might have sparked the eggcorn. Hadn’t thought of that.
In my brief time in this forum I haven’t seen a discussion of the issue raised in our last couple of posts. At issue, as I understand it, is the eggcorn lifecycle. Everyone seems to agree that an intentional transfer of imagery has to be present at the birth of an eggcorn. The essence of the eggcorn speech act is a double potentiation, surface and deep. At the surface the similarity of two sounds leads the speaker to substitute one word/term for another. At the deep level, the conceptual net shifts, offering a satisfying rationale for using the substituted phrase.
Some eggcorns remain permanent infants. These are turns of speech that happen easily and happen often. It would be impossible, for example, to pinpoint the origin of “knotical mile.” The phrase will be coined, forgotten and recoined by the sea-challenged masses. But other eggcorns, perhaps the majority, follow a more conventional life trajectory, with stages of birth, maturity and senescence. They may be coined only once, or at most a few times. As these eggcorns move into maturity, the conditions that made them possible can disappear. A second and third generation of speakers may keep the phrase alive, but as the circumstances behind the eggcorn’s generation recede, the deep potentiation which was essential for its birth plays an ever smaller role. At the end of its life cycle one of two E-fates await the doddering eggcorn–Extinction or English. Most pack up and quietly disappear, but a few sneak into the mother tongue. Over the years these small contributions can add up. Chances are that English is raddled with dead eggcorns.
Because my background is in computational linguistics, I tend to be a bit of a skeptic when “imagery” is invoked too often. A surprising amount of natural language generation can be satisfactorily explained by mechanisms of language production that do not appeal to the ghost of intentionality. I suspect that this is the case with many of the eggcorn citations that we pull from the web and that we collect from real life. The vast majority of English speakers are carriers of hoary traditions of language regularities and sound patterns, not (thank goodness) philosophers and etymologists. This is all, of course, a roundabout way of saying what I offered in the earlier post: I think it unlikely that deep structure, active imagery, is at work when modern gas gets ciphered from a tank. The eggcorn is on its last legs and the window of its linguistic regeneration has passed. The few speakers who still use it are prompted by surface motivations. There may no longer be anyone around to query about its active imagery. If this is the case, is the phrase still an eggcorn? A satisfactory answer, it seems to me, requires us to take into account the life cycle of an eggcorn.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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Very interesting analysis, kem. I appreciate how deeply you’ve detailed this aspect of eggcorning that I’ve not substantially considered until this point; the life cycle of an eggcorn. I think my short answer to one of your main questions is I would consider that if a word were ever an eggcorn then ,in that context, it would remain one. True, if it has become archaic, it would have little relevance for us, although I would assume it would hold worth as a novelty, at least to some of us enthusiasts/hobbyists. But that brings me to a larger point: As you state, an eggcorn can be on its last legs, losing its linguistic regerneration. I think therein lies a beautiful principle about what you observe: Eggcorns have a self-limiting perpetuation that is tied to their contemporary relevance. If I may be so bold, I believe you can tie imagery directly to that relevance. As the substitutive imagery fades, so does the popularity of the eggcorn – case in point being this example of cipher. It has very few sightings. Perhaps, if a google search could be run in 1940 there would be more returns – who knows? What we are left to deal with is what we can observe now, even if artifacts. I obviously am not nearly as hesitant to buy into the issue of “imagery”. I believe the tie-in to eggcorns is not so much linguistic as psychological. I believe we humans tend to navigate ourselves into some of the same interesting corners concerning eggcorns and imagery has a lot to do with it. True, once an eggcorn is made, it can be transferred many times over in simple, traditional linguistic avenues. But, that doesn’t preclude the word being repeatedly birthed in the original way by independant and multitudinous speakers. Also, traditional linguistic transfer does not preclude the transferring of the alternate imagery with it, which I believe you stated. It’s the quantifying that is so elusive. Nevertheless, the good that I get out of what you say is that which concerns eggcorn lifecylce and the probability that we are observing, in “cipher”, the last throes of its life. At this point I feel a bit mischievous asserting that even these last few speakers may very well be being prompted by deeper(imagery) structure. I think since the eggcorn was birthed with imagery it, by definition, is harder to seperate from that imagery even to the end of its lifecycle. Of course, as you say, whether surface or deep motivations, one always is on shaky ground when speculating what someone else had in mind in every instance. Surely there must be ways to cultivate certainty, to the affirmative or negative concerning these postulations. Thank you for the stimulating discourse!
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As an eggcorn hunter, I’m strictly interested in the birth of imagery so that I can determine whether any single instance of usage is an eggcorn or not. It certainly makes our job harder when we are on the senescent side of usage. It almost like a detective identifying the criminal based on the repetitions of a parrot at the crime scene. So, yes, we have to deal with senescence in the form of mindless reproductions (which, per se, aren’t eggcorns).
As an aside, I’ll add this: in a different context loss of imagery provides new opportunity; When expressions lose their sense—indeed, their imagery— they become likely sources for new eggcorns. I’m reminded of idioms like “play fast and loose” and “It’s nothing to sneeze at” spawning new variants. I’ve even predicted that “crime blogger” may one day replace “crime blotter” as the latter gradually recedes.
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Personally, I believe that certain reshapings are constantly reinvented by speakers independently of each other. If that’s so, it complicates the idea of an innovation’s “life cycle.”
But let’s assume for a moment the validity of the life cycle model. Can we tell that “ciphering the gas” isn’t at the beginning of its cycle? Do we have any citations before the 1990s?
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True, we only have recent citations of ciphering gas. But some simple detective work suggests that it originated in the 1920-1940 frame. We need to find a time when “cipher,” in the sense of “zero” (or in the sense of “doing arithmetic,” if booboo’s suggestion is taken into account) was more familiar to speakers of English than “siphon.” “Siphon” was a science word until the advent of the automobile. “Cipher” as a zero was commonly known to the generations born before 1900—after that it fades.
The fact that the eggcorn is rare these days also points to a door that was open and has now closed.
Unfortunately we can’t check the 1920s Internet for examples (an internet in the 1920s would not have been very popular—all the pornography would have been in black and white).
The most interesting eggcorns are the ones that are, as Patrick says, “constantly reinvented.” But we have to resist the temptation to make these kinds of eggcorns the paradigm, don’t we? These fascinating eggcorns are no more typical eggcorns than The Sound of Music and Cats are typical broadway shows. Seems to me the humble eggcorns that live out their lives and die when they should have some claim to be paradigm eggcorns.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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A new use of ciphering for syphoning appeared recently on the Australian ABC news website. It’s funny because the ‘ciphering’ could be said to be using funds for secretive purposes, disguising what the funds are really used for. Full text here – http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009 … 574977.htm – and a snip below
The Federal Government says the Coalition’s introduction of voluntary university student fees left universities $170 million worse off.
It is trying to reintroduce compulsory student fees, but Senator Joyce says some of the money could end up in the hands of student activists.
“There’s nothing to stop those with a political bent setting up a club or setting up an institution and using that as a mechanism of sorts for ciphering funds to themselves,” he said.
Cheers
Keith
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Thanks, Keith, for bringing this interesting exchange from the solid days of the forum back up to the surface.
Last edited by burred (2009-05-26 00:40:54)
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No problem. I guess you can’t keep a good eggcorn down.
K
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Shouldn’t that be “you can’t keep a bad eggcorn down?”
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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