Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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The Eggcorn Forum and the Eggcorn Database are currently in the process of being converted into static sites.
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Chris -- 2025-05-10
Drives me nuts! How many “Experts” on history (even on the “History Chanel”) have you heard say this? It’s “Cavalry rifle/horse/soldier,” NOT “Calvary!” I did not find it in the data-base…..
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This is not in the database because it isn’t really an eggcorn. For a substitution to be an eggcorn it needs to evoke some imagery that is a plausible replacement for the imagery of the substituted word, just as the word “eggcorn,” converying as it does the idea of something small and oval, is a meaningful semantic replacement for the word “eggcorn.” The Calvary/cavalry switch is just a word confusion. Sometimes we call these “malapropisms” to distinguish them from eggcorns.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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