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#1 2008-08-26 01:07:40

klakritz
Eggcornista
From: Winchester Massachusetts
Registered: 2005-10-25
Posts: 674

'strings and arrows' for 'slings and arrows'

The database already contains ‘stings and arrows’ as well as ‘no stings attached.’ This one is uncommon but peculiarly apt since archery requires both strings and arrows. Examples:

Likewise, the Romanians’ yearning to keep their identity through Christian faith, as a people confronted constantly with the “strings and arrows” of fate, ...
www.orthodoxphotos.com/Monasteries_and_ … ndex.shtml

Bogged down by the strings and arrows of outrageous urban life?
www.spider.tm/may2002/top5.shtml

The characters in the Mahabharata are forced to evolve through stressful circumstances, and the ‘strings and arrows of outrageous fortune’ either make them …
www.inannareturns.com/gita/maha.htm

I’ve suffered the strings and arrows of outrageous humour but have I been disheartened?
www.examiner.co.uk/views-and-blogs/colu … ving-86081

Over at John August’s blog, he brought in this recent LA Times article, There follows a great discussion on the strings and arrows of a novelist’s demands …
manifestingit.blogspot.com/2006/12/to-everything-turn-turn-turn.html

... and the steady glow of a hopeful intellect, steeled for youth to a patience of “the strings and arrows of outrageous fortune”-All these may be diagnosed …
links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-7294(196206)2%3A64%3A3%3C593%3AALPOAA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-6 -

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#2 2008-08-26 01:38:14

patschwieterman
Administrator
From: California
Registered: 2005-10-25
Posts: 1680

Re: 'strings and arrows' for 'slings and arrows'

Excellent. Hey, maybe Will was just typing very quickly and dropped a letter when he wrote “stings and arrows”—that was pretty common on those clunky keyboards they were using in the early 1600s. (See the Database entry for documentation….)

Last edited by patschwieterman (2008-08-26 03:54:56)

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#3 2008-08-26 08:13:13

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2712
Website

Re: 'strings and arrows' for 'slings and arrows'

What comes to my mind is not bowstrings but bonds: maybe picture Saint Sebastian tied to a post, pierced by many a dart. What outrageous fortune does to us is not only stick us full like a pincushion, but tie us up while the process is accomplished.

(One of my favorite lines from the book I’m working on is:

In some, there does not seem to be a line that holds true all accross the border between the slings and erros of serendipitous fortune and other forms of lingusitic creativity.

We’ve got typos, spellos, (speedos??), grammos, why not erros generally?)

Last edited by DavidTuggy (2008-08-26 15:23:27)


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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#4 2008-08-26 11:55:00

kem
Eggcornista
From: Victoria, BC
Registered: 2007-08-28
Posts: 2850

Re: 'strings and arrows' for 'slings and arrows'

“all accross the border between the slings and erros of serendipitous fortune”

Did your speaker mean “slings and errors?” There are at least thirty unique web pages with this eggcorn.


Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.

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#5 2008-08-26 12:12:53

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2712
Website

Re: 'strings and arrows' for 'slings and arrows'

I didn’t get the sentence as a whole from anyone: I concocted it myself from items in my collection. Among them is erro meaning “error”, which fit the meaning I wanted in context.

(The bloopers I included were “In some,” “accross”, “hold true all across the border”, “erros”, and “lingusitic”. Now I can count “slings and errors” as a component as well.)

“Slings and errors” is wonderful, though. Some I saw looked like jokes, which mine was also. But for any that were written in all seriousness, it’s a classy eggcorn. Fortune, perhaps unlike Fate or Providence, is subject to erro.

Last edited by DavidTuggy (2008-08-26 12:16:08)


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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#6 2008-08-26 12:43:56

kem
Eggcornista
From: Victoria, BC
Registered: 2007-08-28
Posts: 2850

Re: 'strings and arrows' for 'slings and arrows'

“I concocted it myself from items in my collection.”

So while the rest of us are building, as best we can, a refuge of sanity amid the rush to semantic oblivion, you are aiding and abedding the farces of darkness by publishing more of this dribble?


Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.

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#7 2008-08-26 13:07:42

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2712
Website

Re: 'strings and arrows' for 'slings and arrows'

I confess … I am guilty.


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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#8 2008-08-26 13:34:18

klakritz
Eggcornista
From: Winchester Massachusetts
Registered: 2005-10-25
Posts: 674

Re: 'strings and arrows' for 'slings and arrows'

Re comment #3 by David Tuggy:

When I first looked at the sentence from his book-in-progress, I thought that he must have meant to write ‘In sum…’ and mistakenly substituted a homophone. But then I realized that the sentence makes sense- although with markedly different meanings- with either ‘sum’ or ‘some.’ I haven’t tried to do a search (it would be tricky), but I wonder how often ‘in sum’ gets turned into ‘in some.’

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#9 2008-08-26 14:32:00

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2712
Website

Re: 'strings and arrows' for 'slings and arrows'

It’s hard to tell, and in fact, just checking, the example I have is kind of iffy. Clear examples of “some” for “sum” are not hard to find—it’s just hard to sort the “in some”=“in sum” examples from the millions of legitimate ones.

The weights in a Zipfian distribution of n elements can be normalized to sum to 1 by dividing each weight by the some of all the weights.

does one look to maximize the sum of all good over the some of all bad?

Item I give and Bequeath Unto my Dear wife Elizabeth my Estate both Real and … the said Philip the some of one hundred Dollers out of my estate hereafter.

The best way to some up the Bull Run Run 50 Mile was one word: MUD.

there’s that 30-second musical clip that manages to some up the entire premise so succinctly

There’s sum eggcorn potential in “some and substance”, “some total”, and “some of the whole”

the trial court filed a Judgment Entry which stated, in some and substance, “the objections are overruled and he court having made an independent analysis of the issues and the applicable law hereby approves and adopts the Magistrate’s Decision and orders it to be entered as a matter of record.”

Dan Rather would have interviewed Adolph about the Wansee Conference and the some and substance of his report would have been about the weather,

(There’s something close to “any and all” in “some and substance”, I think.)

We rely on the information passed down to us through the Tree of Knowledge, which is the some total of all human understanding.

Yes, the nation experienced modest growth in its Gross Domestic Product (the some total of the value of all goods produced) during the first quarter of 2002

The averaging techniques are obviously one of many methods in managing inventory (the some of the whole is greater than its parts).

the clinician seeks a synergistic interaction between agents such that the therapeutic some of the whole is greater than the parts.

Last edited by DavidTuggy (2008-08-26 14:40:49)


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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