Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
Here’s one from the wilds of the blogosphere –
“cafe ole” for “cafe au lait” when describing someone’s enviably lovely skin tone. I really like this eggcorn- it’s kept the coffee part but made the rest so much more exciting than milk!
A Google search for “cafe ole” turns up numerous restaurants but try “cafe ole skin” and you’ll see 5 hits in this context.
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I have a memory that someone posted on “cafe ole” a couple of years ago, but I haven’t been able to find the post. In any case, I posted on the phrase back in December. Since my comments are buried in the notoriously long thread on “Lehmann’s terms,” here they are again:
I’ve been thinking about “cafe ole†(for “cafe au laitâ€) along these lines for quite a while now, and I’ve slowly convinced myself that it’s probably a bona fide eggcorn. (It was suggested on the forum some time ago.) It follows a well-established pattern of names for food and drink in which the modifier follows the noun (and is sometimes drawn from a foreign language): cafe royale, cafe mexicano, shrimp louie, eggs benedict. If you know a bit of French, “cafe au lait†is self-explanatory. But for most of us, there’s no obvious reason why adding brandy and sugar to black coffee makes it “royale.†Or why a poached egg on a muffin should have something to do with a “Benedict.†But the odd-but-familiar syntactic pattern tips us off that these phrases belong to a group of food/beverage terms that are conventionally opaque – we know not to ask too many questions about why their names mean what they mean. “Cafe ole†fits right in with this pattern – and it does make a bit of sense. “Ole†is a term of approbation, and no there’s no particular reason why a pleasing combo like coffee and milk shouldn’t inspire some enthusiasm. Nevertheless, it’s not terribly specific – there are many other types of coffee that seem just as worthy of evoking an “ole†from caffeine addicts. Like “cafe royale,†then, there’s something a touch random about “cafe ole.†But my main point here is that speakers seem to understand that certain types of words and phrases are less likely to make immediate sense than others. And if a potential eggcorn seems genuinely to fit into one of these types, then we need to modify the usual standards of eggcornicity a bit.
http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/forum/view … p?pid=5406
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“The drink that charges down your throat!”
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The previous posting was tucked away here:
Eggcorn on “Gilmore Girls” by gilibug Contribute! 3 2007-10-06 11:50:16 by jorkel
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Thanks, Joe! Here’s a live link to that gilibug post: http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/forum/view … hp?id=2136
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If Pat’s argument about the beverage cafe ole being analogous to cafe royale was good (and even I didn’t object to that one), librarianna’s cafe ole as a color term is even better. Not only does this strip away its French provenance, but by referring to color rather than a beverage, there is also no hint of association with milk.
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At the risk of seeming ridiculous, isn’t it likely that “cafe ole” as a skin color has been influenced by the product “Oil of Olay,” intended to improve women’s complexions? Particularly if someone were naive enough to imagine that there is an “Olay” from which the famous oil was extracted? Perhaps the same Olay is sometimes added to coffee? I think this sort of skein of multiple subconscious associations is often kicking around in eggcorns.
Certainly Oil of Olay was heavily advertised when I was a kid, and I was puzzled by the word. It’s interesting that the website for the product (now just called “Olay,” as “Oil of. . . ” suggests fat or grease, now a bad thing) never deigns to explain where “Olay” comes from. In fact, it comes from “lanolin,” and the company used different euphonic variants in different countries: “As the company began to market the product internationally, it was decided to modify the name of the product in each country so it would sound pleasing and realistic to consumers. This led to the introduction of oil of Ulay in the UK, oil of Ulan in Australia, and oil of Olaz in Netherlands.” I wonder what “realistic” is supposed to mean in this context?
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