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
I’d like to chime in on this one, as the entry in the database indicates that many consider it a typo. I don’t discount the possibility, but that cannot explain its occurrence in spoken English. A close friend of mine uses the expression, and I have to grit my teeth every time, since I don’t want to make it an issue of contention. I have, however, used my tooth-gritting time constructively, and I believe I have figured out why my friend has made this mistake, err… eggcorn. Awareness of the colloquial verbalization of the word every as ever’, combined with an erroneous association with the phrase every time, could lead a well-intentioned person to say every since in order to avoid sounding uneducated. This does not explain why my friend pronounces the phrase “every sense,” but hey, one epiphany at a time.
Thoughts? Differences? Rotten tomatoes?
“If you’re not part of the solution,
you’re part of the precipitate.”
Offline
I agree that this has some eggcorn potential in cases like that of your friend (as well as a being typo in some instances.)
The acorn has an intransitive usage (“he’s been depressed ever sinceâ€) and a transitive one (“ever since the Phillies lost†[i.e. forever], “ever since thenâ€). For the transitive usage of every since to be an eggcorn it needs a reanalysis of since to mean something like “occasion sinceâ€; for the intransitive usage it would be “occasion (since then)â€.
As you point out, the neutralization of every with ever in colloquial speech, coupled with a hypercorrection of ever to every in more careful speech, is a likely factor.
I wonder if the neutralization of the since /sense contrast may not be more important than it first seems in what’s going on. To say that something has happened constantly (the meaning of ever ) is a way of affirming its completeness. To say that it happens in every sense is also an affirmation of its completeness in a different but far from unrelated way. Some blending with every sense , prompted and in fact almost forced by the neutralization of the pronunciation contrast, is part of the picture, I’m guessing.
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2008-10-08 09:35:23)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
Offline
By Jove, I think you’ve made the crucial connection. (Maybe they should call this “Epiphanies ‘R’ Us!”) Thanks, DavidTuggy.
“If you’re not part of the solution,
you’re part of the precipitate.”
Offline