Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
I’m not entirely sure whether this is a genuine eggcorn in this context, or a misspelling, or what; I don’t have enough clues to the intentional state of the writer. The context makes me doubt it’s a deliberate pun; it’s a real estate sales flyer, and it’s overall devoid of wordplay, so if this were a deliberate pun there would probably be quotes on it (as there are on “must see” lower in the same paragraph: “This is truly a ‘must see’.”) Here’s the sentence:
Over 1100 square feet of luxuriously renovated with no expanse spared.
This one is also out there in Google-land with other cites, some of which may be misspellings of “expense” but some of which are likely to be eggcorns:
www.mlive.com/loons/saginawnews/index.ssf?/ base/sports-0/1188728699279630.xml&coll=9
They had the venue, a spare-no-expanse minor league stadium called Dow Diamond
http://www.amplifiertheband.com/band_journals.php
all the soldiers are dead
some advice:
don’t fuck god’s wife
spare no expanse
spare no man
look the other way
en.allexperts.com/q/ Military-History-669/fantasy-question.htm
The Allies would have spared no expanse to find and destroy enemy high tech jets.
isomethingme.blogs.friendster.com/ thegreatblogster/2006/06/king_of_blog.html
spare no expanse to make my rabid readers feel at home
www.usacasinoclubs.com/clubs/clubsvipsupport.php
This is why we spare no expanse in bringing our casino clubs members the top VIP support service available
etc.
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I think there can certainly be circumstance where “expanse” is an eggcorn of “expense”—rather than an intentional play on words—and I think that your real estate example is one. Particularly since real estate agents might have the word “expanse” on their mind in the first place. (Hmmmm… does a subliminal slip count as an eggcorn?)
The eggcorn actually makes quite a bit of sense in other contexts as well. The notion of expanding one’s business to meet a demand is a situation where both “spare no expense” and “spare no expanse” make sense.
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