Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2025-05-10
I frequently hear people saying “I lost my chain of thought” when I think what they mean to say is “train of thought”
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We had an eggcorn in the other direction before…
‘train reaction’ for ‘chain reaction’ by klakritz Contribute! 1 2007-06-21 02:56:31 by jorkel
...and it always surprises me that we don’t discover the eggcorns in both directions simultaneously. At any rate, Sumithar’s finding seems to be a legitimate eggcorn.
Chains and trains are very similar in the sense that they are linked up sequences, so one could easily see how the imagery would transfer from one to the other.
Last edited by jorkel (2008-11-11 19:45:06)
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Jorkel is right- bi-directional eggcorns are easy to find if you look for them. For example, after thinking about the previously noted eggcorn ‘shoulder on’ for ‘soldier on,’ I googled ‘a soldier to cry on.’ It’s uncommon but it kinda makes sense, and it’s out there, e.g.:
It’s important for those around them to look for behavior/attitude changes, and to give them a soldier to cry on when the work is down …
www.serviceacademyforums.com/archive/in … -2560.html
The problem is that we don’t yet have a clever term for bi-directional eggcorns. ‘Bicorn’ doesn’t work; it’s a hat.
Anybody got a better name?
Last edited by klakritz (2008-11-11 20:04:49)
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‘Ambicorn’ springs to mind, and I quite like the sound of ‘amphicorn’ too.
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This topic came up in an earlier thread (http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/forum/view … hp?id=2851). David suggested “roundtrip eggcorns.” That’s the term I’ve been using.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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