Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
You are not logged in.
Registrations are currently closed because of a technical problem. Please send email to
The forum administrator reserves the right to request users to plausibly demonstrate that they are real people with an interest in the topic of eggcorns. Otherwise they may be removed with no further justification. Likewise, accounts that have not been used for posting may be removed.
Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
The English word “pander” appears to be based on an old Latin/Greek name. The name was bestowed by Boccaccio, Chaucer and Shakespeare on a character in the story of Troilus and Cressida who acted as a go-between for lovers. The name was generalized to the role and “pander” became a word for “romantic facilitator.” The semantics of the word soon took a questionable turn and by the seventeenth century a “pander” became a specific type of romantic intermediary-a pimp. The noun “pander” and “panderer” for “pimp” has fallen out of general use today, and speakers of English will know the word better as an intransitive verb, one largely confined to the idiom, “to pander to X,” meaning to cater to someone’s less than noble desires. In its idiomatic framing the verb is common-the Google database stores a million pages with the phrase “pander to.”
The word “pamper” has been part of English for at least as long as “pander” has. “Pamper” may be derived from a Germanic or Anglo-Saxon forbear, though no one is quite sure. It’s a transitive verb, and it means to lavish food and/or attention on someone, to gratify/mollycoddle/indulge their desires. Unlike “pander, “pamper” passes no moral judgment on the nobility of the desires that are gratified.
So we have two separate words with overlapping meanings, right? One transitive verb, (“pamper”), and one intransitive verb (“pander”) that is almost always idiomatized with “to.” What, then, are we to make of wellness clinics that “pamper to one’s personal well-being?” (http://worldhotels.surfwax.com/files/Pa … ralia.html). Or a lodge whose “fantastic staff” will “pamper to your every need?” (http://www.rydges.com/13/article/RQPDUG … ouglas.htm) A blogger announces in a bold headline that he has found several dating sites that “pamper to my interests.” (http://www.tedgushue.info/2008/02/final … to-my.html). BBC in its “Learning English – Words in the News” feature notes the increased use of “pampering to” and says that “if you pamper to someone, you try to do everything possible to please them.” (http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learn … witn.shtml) What BBC fails to ask itself is why the transitive verb “pamper” is followed by an object after the preposition “to.”
The internet examples of “pamper to X” multiply. We pamper to tastes, travellers, needs, low life dregs, wishes, tactics, elites, enemies, minorities-the list goes on. At a minimum, we have some kind of cross-fertilization going on, with the word “pamper” borrowing the grammar of the “pander to” idiom but keeping its own meaning. There are cases, however, where we could argue that we have something more. When a forum poster, for example, says that a sport team “used to pamper to [a footballer’s] wishes” (http://www.expressandstar.com/2008/03/2 … rs-mar-27/), it looks a lot like “pander” has been eggcorned with “pamper.”
Last edited by kem (2008-07-10 00:22:08)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
Offline
Although both “pander” and “pamper” are common words that one would think everyone knows, the former might actually be a little less familiar. But moreso than that, I think “pamper” conjures up a more concrete image/meaning than “pander.” And, the transitive/intransitive replacement really nails the utterer’s intent to impose that imagery. Feels like an eggcorn to me.
Offline
kem wrote:
At a minimum, we have some kind of cross-fertilization going on, with the word “pamper†borrowing the grammar of the “pander to†idiom but keeping its own meaning. There are cases, however, where we could argue that we have something more.
I think you’re right on, though (perhaps due to my own conservative nature) I am more inclined to see this as a grammatical cross-fertilization than an eggcorn-type reshaping. That is, pamper to seems to have the semantics of pamper and only the syntax of pander.
Last edited by nilep (2008-07-11 11:00:26)
Offline
I know what you mean, nilep. My mind keeps coming back to the pamper/pander problem. Something isn’t quite right about the way these two words interchange. Even though pamper and pander share a core meaning (to cater to), their connotations seem to run in opposite directions. Pamper suggests catering to someone’s real needs, usually in an intentional and caring way. Pandering is catering to someone’s baser desires, usually in a cynical, reluctant or unhealthy way. When the images are interchanged, the resulting image (conveyed by pamper) seems to be at odds with the starting image (conveyed by pander). Good eggcorns have an alternate imagery that preserves the essential meaning in a surprising way. The part of pander that gets lost when we substitute pamper for it seems to be essential to the idiom.
On the other hand, pamper can sometimes be used in a negative sense. We can pamper someone who needs a firm hand. I just don’t know. Thinking about these two words is like watching a play in which the plot keeps taking unpredictable turns. It all makes sense on the surface, but the viewer is never snagged by the story.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
Offline