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Chris -- 2018-04-11
I’ve been waiting for a place to post this one! When I was a student at the University of Texas at Dallas a few years ago, the library had special inter-session (between semesters) hours. They posted the hours on the library doors. But the sign actually read, “Intercession hours 8AM-5PM.”
I agree that I really needed INTERCESSION hours, especially for exam times! And I thought that was exceptionally charming. However, when I asked around for a saint or priest (for the intercession) with a wink, I was met with blank stares. Oh, well. But lexicographers will surely chuckle.
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Chucklin’.
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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I was going to say, I find it interesting that intercession suggests saints or priests to you, Shalanna. It doesn’t for me. Not surprisingly, part of the sense of any word derives from the situations in which we use it. I suspect you take part in Christian worship; I do not.
I was going to say that (and I suppose I just did), but thought I’d check a third-party source to make sure there is support for both of our understandings of the word. The Oxford English Dictionary lists as the first sense of intercession
I. 1. The action of interceding or pleading on behalf of (rarely against) another; entreaty, solicitation, or prayer for another; mediation.
b. spec. in religious use: Intercessory prayer.
c. Loosely used for a petition or pleading on one’s own behalf. Obs.
So, OED agrees: both your religious sense and my legalistic sense are perfectly cromulent*.
But in doing that little search, I also found this:
5. = INTERCESSATION; intermission. Obs.
So at one point in history, the inter-session period might have been properly called an intercession. (Yes, I know: UT probably didn’t exist at that point, so it couldn’t have had inter-session hours.)
Oh, and welcome to the Forum, Shalanna.
Oh, and, I’d probably call this a (non-eggcorn) malaprop, rather than an eggcorn as such.
*See: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cromulent
Last edited by nilep (2008-07-03 11:40:42)
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If you grew up Catholic (or in one of a number of Orthodox religions), the “intercession of saints” is a very familiar phrase, and it gets over 11k raw hits. There’s even a Wikipedia “Intercession of Saints” article. It’s certainly the first use that popped into my mind.
Last edited by patschwieterman (2008-07-03 18:33:17)
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