Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
There was a brief discussion on ADS-L recently when I suggested that “assanine” might be an eggcorn. Google shows 25,000 hits for “assanine” and 207,000 for “assinine.” I don’t think this is simply a realization of the etymology of “asinine” since few speakers of American English use “ass” to mean “donkey.” They use it rather for British “arse” or to mean “foolish person.” Asinine behavior is foolish behavior, hence “assinine/assanine” as an eggcorn.
Herb
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The point you are making, if I follow you, has an interesting corollary. Would you say that the word “ass” itself, in the sense of “a stubborn or stupid person,” is an eggcorn? At one time calling someone an “ass” was a way of comparing their behavior to that of a donkey. Gradually people stopped making the connection between the appellation and the animal and began to refer the epithet to the English word slang “ass” that was derived, by internal r-deletion, from “arse.”
But was there an existing meaning for “arse” that was adapted to make the switch, or did making the switch introduce a new meaning for “arse” (i.e., a badly behaving person). On that question hangs the tail.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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I hadn’t thought of that possibility. However, the shift from “donkey” to “stubborn or stupid person” seems more like a metonymy. I don’t know when “ass” developed as the AmE equivalent for BE “arse.” Clearly, you’re right that r-deletion was involved, but was it an American r-drop variety that produced “ass” or British r-droppers who brought it here with them? Because of the a > ae fronting, I suspect the latter, but it’s not a very strong case.
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I think, and correct me if I’m wrong, hstahlke, that your point was that ass is exerting some influence on the misspellings of asinine, right?
I’m inclined to call this a misspelling rather than an eggcorn per se. But there may be some influence there. In fact, it might be similar to an influence that Peter Forster sees avatar exerting on atavistic.
http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/forum/view … hp?id=2634
They could all be simple typos or misspellings, but there could be some priming effect, or even a reshaping in the mental lexicon.
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One of the issues in the ADS-L discussion was related to this, whether the word is simply a misspelling. The boundary between misspelling and eggcorn is fuzzy. Consider, for example, “awkword” in the Eggcorn Database. “Awkword” and “assinine” are alike in that the spelling changes by allusion to a similar or identical sounding word that has a relevant meaning, but unlike an example like “eggcorn” itself the remainder of the word is not reanalyzed. If “awkword” is an eggcorn, then “assinine” is too, but I’m not sure “awkword” should be.
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Welcome, Herb, and it is true there are many words in the Database, including ‘awkword’, that probably shouldn’t be there and few of us regulars would use them as any kind of standard, though in truth they ought to be. Assinine’s eggcornish pretensions rest on an association with the buttocks, so surely there should be some evidence of the word ‘arsinine?’ There is, but oddly enough many relevant mentions seem not to be BrEnglish ones as I would have expected, but US based – I wonder therefore quite what ‘arse’ might denote over there.
It is an arsinine statement made by arses. No inspector has ever inspected quality into a product. It has always had to be built in. ...
www.indeed.com/forum/cmp/ Boeing/05390c183c137e1875704405 – 65k – Cached
And the cliche spouted above is borderline assinine (is that arsinine in you commonwealth countries :unsure ). By definition, your friends are the ones who …
www.gayauthors.org/forums/Deal-Lying-t16067. html&pid=99583&mode=threaded – 77k – Cached
I am insulted at Viz’s arsinine dialogue and their half-arsed attempts at “translating” the manga. Reading Viz’s woeful writing should not be as difficult …
www.animenewsnetwork.com/bbs/phpBB2/viewtopic. php?t=26093&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15 – 72k – Cached
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Thanks, Peter. I’m not so sure that the link to “assinine” is through “ass” as “buttocks.” “Ass” as “donkey” took on the meaning “an ignorant fellow, a perverse fool, a conceited dolt” as early as 1578 (OED entry for “ass^1” 2.), about a century before Southern British English lost post-vocalic /r/, which led to the near or total homophony of “ass” and “arse.” The OED indicates that the metonymic meaning of “ass” existed before that sound change so that AmE “ass” for “arse” and “ass” for “donkey, perverse fool” would be separate, homophonous words.
I agree that “assinine” is at best a fringe eggcorn.
Herb
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I think that Peter’s discovery of “arsinine” proves what we need to know. People saying “arsinine” are not re-importing “ass” (=donkey, stupid person) into “asinine.” Given the spelling, they could only be invoking the homophone of “ass,” the one meaning “buttocks.” To close the eggcorn loop we have to find the alternate imagery that “arsinine/assinine” relies on. I think the alternate imagery exists. The sense of “arse/ass,” meaning “someone who acts despicably,” is getting switched for the donkey imagery of “ass” (=stubborn, stupid) in the word “assinine.” Thus an eggcorn.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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Kem wrote
At one time calling someone an “ass†was a way of comparing their behavior to that of a donkey. Gradually people stopped making the connection between the appellation and the animal and began to refer the epithet to the English word slang “ass†that was derived, by internal r-deletion, from “arse.â€
Personally, I’ve never stopped making the connection between “ass/jerk” and “ass/donkey.” As far back as I can remember, those two have been aligned in my mind and have seemed to be pretty much a different word from “ass/buttocks.” While I’m willing to believe that many North Americans assume that “ass/jerk” has its roots in “ass/arse,” the real etymological connections just have to be alive for many speakers. “Jackass” is less common than “ass” as an insult, but I think most of us would recognize the two terms as exact synonyms in this sense. And “jackass” is unambiguously drawing its imagery from donkeys—I’ve never heard anyone refer to the buttocks as a “jackass.”
At the same time that this thread has been lengthening quickly the last few days, Jon’s old thread on words that have fallen out of favor has also been exploding with new life. And the conjunction makes me wonder whether “jackass” as a term of contumely is less common today than it was when I was a little kid. It was a favorite insult of my father’s, but I don’t recall having heard it much recently. Perhaps younger speakers are less likely to be pointed to the etymological origins of “ass/jerk” by “jackass” than we older folks.
We long ago came to the conclusion that eggcorns are context-bound (or more precisely, “speaker-bound”): something that’s an eggcorn for one person isn’t one for another. As Peter noted, “assinine’s” claim to eggcornicity rests on the perceived link between “ass/arse” and “ass/jerk.” Without that connection, you don’t have new imagery, and therefore no eggcorn. (And incidentally, “ass” and “asinine” do appear to be connected etymologically, but the connection is surprisingly distant.) “Assinine” could never be an eggcorn for me, but it might be for the people Kem was talking about. But I think “fringe eggcorn” is a pretty good compromise.
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