Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
http://cgi.ebay.com/Secret-Agent-Double … dZViewItem
“Secret Agent Double Knot Seven Minolta 16 Spy Camera”
007, James Bond, Double-0-Seven, Double-Naught-Seven—whatever you call him, you know his line of work requires well tied shoes. Could this have given rise to the eggcorn “double knot seven”?
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Hi Katy,
a key aspect to eggcorns is the replacement of one set of imagery with another. Perhaps you might elaborate on whether you believe “knot” was literally intended. Did the utterer have a particular imagery in mind?
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I was honestly wondering if maybe this person thought that Bond tied his shoes with a double knot. Maybe not (knot/naught)? Do you think this may not be an eggcorn after all?
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Hi Katy:
I’m guessing it’s not an eggcorn unless we can conjure up some convincing imagery that the utterer might have intended. Otherwise, you probably just have a reshaping that fits in some other category—whether it be a malapropism, a pun, eye dialect, etc. Keep hunting, though, you’re bound to find something that qualifies.
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I can’t recall ever having heard Bond called double naught seven. I only remember double oh seven.
Leaving that aside, I don’t see how knots come into cameras (nor spies, shoelaces notwithstanding).
The actual object pictured is a Minolta 16 subminature camera, which, I suppose, one might think of as a spy’s camera. If 007 is the prototypical spy, then I would suggest that double knot seven is simply a misspelling of naught.
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Ah, good points. I’ll have to keep this all in mind the next time I think I’ve found an eggcorn!
nilep, I think that “Double Naught Seven” is a British thing. It’s likely that most people from anywhere but England would not have heard the phrase.
Thank you both!
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A “British thing” perhaps, but not apparently an Ian Fleming thing. Google books indexes 750 titles by Mr Fleming, most of them James Bond novels, but returns only two hits for the phrase “double naught seven”, one in the Official Proceedings of the St. Louis Railway Club, and one in a memoir by Dale O. Smith titled Screaming Eagle: Memoirs of a B-17 Group Commander.
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That’s interesting. Either it’s a nickname created by fans and not the author, or I’ve just made another mistake. The former may be more likely. I suppose I’ll have to ask around and see if I can figure out where I’ve previously heard the name.
Thanks for spending the time to look into this!
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The first and only time I’ve heard it mentioned was on an episode of “The Beverly Hillbillies” when Jethro decided his next endeaver was to be a “Double Knot” Agent, like James Bond.
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When Y2K was coming up, wasn’t one of the choices of “names for the century” the “Oughties” because “ought” means zero? So, perhaps it should have been double ‘ought’ seven?
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