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Chris -- 2018-04-11

#1 2008-02-08 10:39:39

breakfastwithpandora
Member
Registered: 2007-06-12
Posts: 2

guffaw for faux pas

In a yahoo.com news article, online columnist Maggie Nemser offers gifts you should not get your Valentine:

11. Appliances. Every man has made this guffaw. Just because she says, “I need a new vacuum” does not mean you should buy her a vacuum.

I think she means “faux pas.”

Anyone ever see this one?

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#2 2008-02-09 20:20:10

nilep
Eggcornista
Registered: 2007-03-21
Posts: 291

Re: guffaw for faux pas

I’d never heard this.

Google does not reveal any instances of “commit a guffaw”. A search for “make a guffaw” yields four results. Two of them may have intended “make a faux pas”; the other two clearly intended “guffaw”.

I have noticed how I am with others… more compassionate, less judgmental, not afraid to speak my truth, not afraid to be me and when I make a guffaw.
www.sacredhunger.com

I cannot wait for the blonde to make a guffaw and say somethign not PC…
www.tmz.com/2007/02/13/the-real-life-will-and-grace/

Oh yes. I used to be a skeptic. I would scoff at the groundhog. I was even known to make a guffaw or two. I mean, seriously, I found it ludicrous that anybody could put any credence whatsoever in a rodent’s predicting the weather
holygrailpress.blogspot.com/2006_01_29_archive.html

He says he was a pro-life governor and there are several people in the crowd who make a guffaw sound.
blogprorealestate.com/2007/11/

There are (coincidentally) also four results for “made a guffaw”. Three might have meant “faux pas”; the fourth refers to “a guffaw steam group,” apparently a one-off usage.

For just a moment, I’d like everyone to heave a collective sigh and realize that someone, somewhere, this year has made a guffaw worse than your own.
socialanxietydisorder.about.com/b/2007/12/31/most-embarrassing-moments-of-2007.htm

I just laughed inwardly and wondered if I had made a guffaw but I didn’t know what else to do because the hostess was just standing there with a blank look on her face,
moriahjoy.wordpress.com/2008/01/12/pride-and-money/

Years ago, you did some kind of grammar(ph) special, made a guffaw of your own and I almost drove off the highway.
www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15370160

For those of you that have steam feel free to add me to your friends list, i’ve made a guffaw steam group for anyone who is a guffaw alumni to join it .
www.worldofguffaw.com/forums/viewtopic. … 71d1dee094

So, “make a guffaw” apparently exists as an eggcorn, but it is not terribly common (at least on the web).

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#3 2008-02-09 20:30:56

nilep
Eggcornista
Registered: 2007-03-21
Posts: 291

Re: guffaw for faux pas

nilep wrote:

So, “make a guffaw” apparently exists as an eggcorn, but it is not terribly common (at least on the web).

No sooner had I hit “submit” than I began to reconsider. While “make a guffaw” exists as a reshaping, it is not necessarily an eggcorn. It may be that there is some overlapping imagery at work here – perhaps a social “false step” occasions a “hearty laugh” – but it’s equally possible that this is a malapropism or other speech error.

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#4 2008-02-11 17:07:50

TootsNYC
Eggcornista
Registered: 2007-06-19
Posts: 263

Re: guffaw for faux pas

Oh, I don’t know—I think eggcorn. They hear one word (faux pas) and think it’s another one, and they have a reason they think so.

It’s sort of a “nouning of a verbing” or something. The way “think” is a thought, from the verb “to think”: “guffaw” is a thing to laugh at, from the verb “to guffaw”

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