Eggcorn Forum

I like it!

I had the same questions about this as Jorkel. In many of the online cases, it’s just really hard to say whether people are punning or not, though the instances in which writers have put “myth conception” in quotes point to a knowing use of the phrase. I found a handful that looked innocent.

The problem here is that Robert Lynn Asprin’s humorous fantasy novel Myth Conceptions came out way back in 1980. (I owned a copy as a teenager.) It was the second installment in the popular and endless “MythAdventures” series of novels (most of which have a mis->>myth- reshaping in the title), and it’s hard to say whether this phrase would be used so widely today if the punningly titled novel had never existed. In fact, I found one online example where the writer (Prof. Julie A. Hanks of Cabrillo College) explicitly credited Asprin for inspiration:

I am writing this letter in response to Lindsay Waters’s “myth conception” (thank you, Robert Asprin) about whole-language instruction. Although Waters is superficially correct about Noam Chomsky’s concept, he obviously has never studied how this concept is applied to whole language, speed in reading, comprehension, or reading acquisition.
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i31/31b01701.htm
[This may be subscription-protected; I’m not sure the link will work for most forum members.]

I’ve argued before that certain things that started out as consciously deployed puns may have become so widespread that they’ve gone native as eggcorns used by speakers unaware of the words’ origins. Two examples I’ve pointed to in earlier posts were “Old Timer’s Disease” for “Alzheimer’s” and “mere bag of shells” for “mere bagatelle.” It’s possible this is another example, but we’d need more evidence. It’d also be interesting to see whether “myth conception” was turning up at all before 1980.

Last edited by patschwieterman (2007-12-01 12:32:03)

The last usage that sesquiotic mentions seems very nonchalant (unforced):

“Everyone has heard about the common myth conception that alcohol should never be taken with antibiotics arose.”

In one sense “myth conception” is a completely legitimate word pair that might have been subliminally suggested by “misconception.” (This harkens back to my discussion about whether describing someones speech as “elegant”—rather than “eloquent”—might constitute an eggcorn).

I don’t know that we ever resolved that issue, however. The linguists might argue strictly on imagery grounds rather than psychological grounds, so one has to wonder whether the latter variety of word shapings might merit its own term.

Pat’s comment about intentional reshapings by one party begetting naive usage by a second party (which overheard the first) also carries merit for a number of examples.

Last edited by jorkel (2007-12-01 23:21:13)