Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
I usually think of the Amish as being self-sufficient, employed on their own farms or in their “shops.” But as farmland gets more expensive, more and more Amish are finding themselves working for “English” bosses – especially in the building trades, where their experience at erecting their own homes and barns is particularly useful. So people do in fact pay Amish to do things for them. But I’m skeptical that any of the people below were thinking of that – sometimes I think the sound of a word has a strong gravitational pull of its own quite apart from any sense. So I’ve stuck this one in “Slips.” Only 13 hits – at least one of which is a comment on the phrase – but that’s about double what it got a couple of years ago when I first googled it. None of the citations capitalized “Amish.” Examples:
There is no way not to pay amish to this Parisian institution.
http://www.voncigars.com/2007/02/parisi … s-you.html
I admit UD is a great team with extensive talent, I pay amish to the O-line for giving Joe Flacco so much time to throw the ball…
http://forums.delawareonline.com/viewto … ad89a606e6
A church is where you pay amish to god and pray for his love.
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fusea … 2167515054
Last edited by patschwieterman (2008-08-16 23:54:03)
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“Paying amish” does have some good eggcorn imagery though, Pat.
In related slippage, I got ghits( almish ) = 5.4K, everything from legitimate slips to Weird Al Yankovic song lyrics. In the process of thinking about “paying amish,” I sighted upon a floating/flying hyphen candidate: alm-shouse. Maybe flying hyp-hens lay eggcorns when noone is looking.
Last edited by rogerthat (2008-08-17 19:22:28)
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Bad Roger! Down, boy! (In which you can no doubt reckonize true punsterish admiration.)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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If there is imagery transfer in “paying Amish,” it may have something to do with Amish Demut, the Amish insistence on a humble and submissive approach to God and society. The same imagery may also be at work in “paying almish.” “Alms” evokes a context of religious humility.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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Isn’t there some other “pay xxxx” phrase in which the “xxxx” is an ethnic group? Or an odd word, like “pay jiggory” (ooh, this is on the edge of my brain, and I can’t grab it; I think it means something like “usury”—and maybe it’s not an ethnic group) Found it! It’s “vigorish,” and no it’s not an ethnic group—but thanks, VisualThesaurus.com!
We “go Dutch.”
Maybe people who use “amish” are simply figuring there’s some old story about the Amish, and honoring people.
Last edited by TootsNYC (2008-08-19 10:54:23)
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TootsNYC wrote:
Maybe people who use “amish” are simply figuring there’s some old story about the Amish, and honoring people.
Our language is littered with things like that, so it’s a reasonable conjecture, for an eggCornishman, that here is another. E.g. what’s French about French toast, what’s Dutch about Dutch chocolate or a Dutch treat, what’s English about an English horn, what’s Cornish about Cornish rock hens? We don’t really necessarily know, but we suppose something about it came from those cultures.
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2008-08-19 11:44:51)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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All of the suggestions above are clever and entertaining—but I think we’ve thought far harder about it than the people actually employing the reshaping. None of the more specific explanations offered above seems to me in any way likely, though I think there’s no arguing with TootsNYC’s feeling that the reshapers believed the word “amish” was somehow appropriate. But I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find (if I could Somehow gain that telepathic access) that they didn’t attempt to define that “somehow” more closely.
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(if I could Somehow gain that telepathic access)
sigh, yeah, I know, wouldn’t that be nice?
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