Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
Of course candles don’t give off incandescent light, but they do give off light. And “candle-power” is still familiar as a measure of luminous intensity for light from any source. 32 unique hits—a few are clearly puns. Examples:
This was because of the different amperage required by the LED lights as opposed to regular incandlescent bulbs.
http://www.m5board.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=21638
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They also said that incandlescent bulbs throw a much broader range and volume of light, but the instant “on/off” characteristics and lower power consumption i think makes leds pretty cool.
http://forums.focaljet.com/exterior-mod … -mode.html
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One is the LED version and the other uses the OEM incandlescent bulb but I’ll be using the socket LED bulb from Gizmo with it inst …
http://www.bmwsuperbikes.com/forum/sear … 2702757a2e
The 15w looks like a 20w. incandlescent for the first 5 sec. if you have not turned on the light for a while(10 minutes).
http://www.amazon.com/review/product/B0 … ddFourStar
The writer in my second example used “incandlescent” a total of three times in the same post, and didn’t use “incandescent.” The writer in my first example used “incandlescent” five times, and “incandescent” once. I’d argue that in his case, “incandescent” was a probably a letter-omission typo….
Last edited by patschwieterman (2008-06-25 02:07:41)
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A good example of an eggcorn in which both terms, the original (incandescent) and the substituted term (incandlescent) are ultimately derived from the same root (the Latin word for shining, being white) without reducing the valency of the eggcorn. We have touched on this derivation issue in earlier threads. Common derivations can undercut a claim to eggcorn status because the substituted word may have lurked for a time linguistic backwaters and returned to claim its share of fame. Or the speaker may have reverted a term, consciously or subconsciously, in order to emphasize a point. In this case, however, the original word probably does not evoke images of candles in the minds of most users-incandescent is too closely associated with light sources based on Edison’s bulb. The substituted word, incandlescent, startles the hearer who knows the word as incandescent by introducing an unexpected image. Eggcorn, I say.
Last edited by kem (2008-06-26 00:38:31)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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Yeah, I think for most of us the etymological link between candle and incandescent is about as opaque as that between chandelier and candid. (But in this American election year it occurs to me that we should think about the link between candor and candidate more often.)
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I was surprised to see the word candela in the dictionary defined simply as “candle”. I thought there was a unit of light intensity by that name …which might provide the needed link we are looking for. No mention of the intensity of light provided by a candle, however.
Last edited by jorkel (2008-06-25 14:49:31)
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Jorkel—I may be misinterpreting your post, so pardon me if you already know this. But “candle” is a unit of intensity. It’s been replaced by “candela”—probably because it’s more “international,” but it also has the virtue of avoiding ambiguity.
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You’re right Pat, I just failed to follow through on the fact that it was the third listed definition. I guess I was surprised that “candle” was used as a unit at all since “candela” had so much of a mystique to it—almost as if to deny it’s origin.
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jorkel wrote:
I was surprised to see the word candela in the dictionary defined simply as “candle”. I thought there was a unit of light intensity by that name …which might provide the needed link we are looking for. No mention of the intensity of light provided by a candle, however.
Jorkel,
Candela is Italian, directly from Latin, for “candle”. Candela di incandescenza means literally “glow plug” or light bulb.
Where do we find that ‘candela’ is a unit of intensity?
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The OED has it:
A unit of luminous intensity (see quot. 1968).
1950 Commission Internat. de l’Éclairage, 1948 14 It is recommended that the new unit for luminous intensity (which is such that the luminance or photometric brightness of a black body at the temperature of freezing platinum equals 60 units of intensity per square centimetre) shall be called in all countries by the Latin name ‘candela’, with the symbol ‘cd’. 1957 R. W. G. HUNT Reprod. Colour viii. 89 A purely physical or photometric quantity, measured, for instance,..in candelas or lumens per square foot if light units are used. 1960 Aerodrome Lighting (B.S.I.) 13 It may be said that in clear conditions the intensity of the runway lights should not exceed about 50 candelas. 1968 Nature 16 Nov. 651/2 The candela is the luminous intensity, in the perpendicular direction, of a surface of 1/600 000 square metre of a black body at the temperature of freezing platinum under a pressure of 101 325 newtons per square metre.
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