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Chris -- 2018-04-11
Peter’s posting of “infaduation†reminded me of another classic misspelling. The “mistery/mystery†confusion does not seem to have been mentioned on this forum before.
Both “mystery†and “mysterious†are often written as “mistery†and “misterious.â€. The Google raw hit estimations for these terms suggest that “mystery” and “mysterious” are mispelled about one percent of the time.
Finger spasms and simple orthographical ignorance cannot account for a frequency of this magnitude, especially in an age of ubiquitous spelling checkers. Chances are that the millions of writers who spell the terms as “mistery†and “misterious†import, consciously or subconsciously, the spelling and meaning of the word “mist,†invoking the sense of mystery conveyed by damp, translucent air.
The words “mystery†and “mist†do not derive from a common parent. “Mistery†was an alternate spelling for “mystery†through the eighteenth century, and “myst†was another way of spelling “mist†until the seventeenth century, but it is unlikely that these older fashions play any role in the modern misspellings.
One wonders what influence the popular graphical adventure game “Myst†has had on the current confusion of “mist†and “mystery.â€
Last edited by kem (2008-11-11 11:36:00)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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I thought the “mist” aspect of mystery was discussed here:
Myst Resolved by grendelpete Contribute! 0 2007-01-03 02:57:48 by grendelpete
But he never really spelled “mist” properly, so now I don’t know whether he was
referring to mist or something named “Myst” which I’m not familiar with.
Last edited by jorkel (2008-11-10 11:04:51)
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“Mist resolved” for “mystery solved” has potential. I can’t find any evidence, however, of the actual eggcorn on the internet. I don’t know whether the person who posted it was making a pun or reporting a usage.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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I think you must be on to something here, kem. The dim/hazy/shrouded/unclear aspects of ‘mist’ are also present in both ‘mistic’ (704 ughits) and ‘mistical’ (722) and, visually, swirling fogs and mists are an essential part of the backdrop to countless ‘mystery’ dramas.
Last edited by Peter Forster (2008-11-11 12:04:42)
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I find “mistical” to be the most convincing word in the set suggested. I find it credible that someone looking to make an adjective out of “mist” might pass over “mistlike” and get a subliminal whisper from “mystical.”
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