Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2025-05-10
From a student essay, used to introduce their (rather lame) paraphrase of a definition: “in lamest terms” rather than “in layman’s terms.”
I had to read it aloud to figure it out. Not only is it the first student error to make me laugh out loud; it’s a remarkably fitting eggcorn for retaining the original’s slightly condescending connotation while translating it into its own “lamest” terms. Lowest common denotation?
Google turns up over 2,000 hits for the phrase.
:)
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Welcome to the forum, Isabel (if I may). “In laymest terms” is a seriously funny eggcorn. You might be interested in a discussion we had on “lamest terms” earlier this year. It is at http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/forum/view … hp?id=741. There is a related discussion of “layman’s terms” in a thread at http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/forum/view … hp?id=2355
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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Oh dear, I’m redundant… but thanks for the links! And maybe it’s an eggcorn worthy of repetition after all.
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Eminently worthy. Especially that one. And now that your ear is tuned to pick out the distant notes of an eggcorn, perhaps you will bring us some new music. The best way to look for previously posted eggcorns is the “Search” link above and the Google box on the introductory page.
Last edited by kem (2008-07-04 00:57:21)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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