Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
My mother reported, while working at a daycare facility, that another worker complained about the director having half fast (or possibly half-fast ideas. My mother took this as a mishearing of half-assed. Most of the Google hits seem to be conscious punning, but this instance seemed to be a genuine eggcorn.
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My feeling on this one is that it originated as an intentional, irreverent language reshaping years ago. Since then it has become pervasive in our culture. It’s possible that there are people who hear this intentional reshaping but don’t recognize it as such… and perhaps reuse it unknowingly. I’m not sure that I would call it an eggcorn if someone has been set up to misinterpret words because eventually people figure out the joke behind calling someone “half-fast.” Just my opinion.
I’d also point this out: Why else would someone juxtapose the words half and fast? Why not semi-fast or half-speed or half-as-fast or the like. In my opinion, the juxtaposition points strongly to a language joke that gets played out over and over in different settings.
Last edited by jorkel (2008-03-19 13:14:51)
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I remember a number of years ago a Ziggy (?) cartoon of him looking out over a huge canyon and saying something like, “God, you never make anything half-vast.” So it seems the play on words has been around in one form or another for a while.
Feeling quite combobulated.
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