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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
Yesterday nilep foresaw the “magazine cover curse” when he suggested on his blog that, having chosen “moan” as an example of an eggcorning long-shot, he fully expected to be shown wrong with a few days. I moved this post to contributions in order not to derail the discussion on “large fuzzy spots” (http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/forum/view … hp?id=3660).
The entire nation is still in moaning over the recent killing of Japanese diplomats in Iraq.
(http://www.metro.tokyo.jp/ENGLISH/GOVER … 0304/2.htm)
My prayers are with those that have lost loved ones and those that are in moaning
(http://www.gopetition.com/msg.php?msgid=229506&isearch=)
(strangely, uses “day of mourning” in the next sentence)
Murder of South African musician:
comment 1: Where is the funeral house for the millions of us outside South Africa? Wher shall we moan lucky dube?
comment 2: May the almighty rest his body in peace. We are in moaning together with family.
Republicans are set to loose both the presidency and seats in the house. Some celebrate (yessss), and some moan the death of there jokulant platform kicked from under their feet.
(http://northernvox.com/wordpress/?tag=republicans)
Critics who moan the death of cinema and insist on the stupidity of audiences will no doubt find no shortage of ammo in most movie houses now
(http://www.cinepassion.org/Archives/CinemaAlive.html)
It serves exactly no one to moan the death of literature and propose no solution to the contrary.
(http://www.kevinsmokler.com/2005/11/fla … on_is.html)
Can this be real?
moan the death = 112 ughits (btw, is there anyway to force Google to look for an exact text, and, not, accept, commas, or-hyphens-within your quoted search phrase?)
in moaning = wysiwig
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And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er / The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, / Which I new pay as if not paid before.
Moaning (or bemoaning) a metaphorical death seems to me very likely to have been purposeful phrasing and perfectly good English. For literal deaths, and for the phrase “in moaningâ€, it seems more malapropistic, including the possibility of full eggcornhood.
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Or so it seems this moaning. Considering which malaprop, the possibility of simple pronunciation spelling, especially for non-rhotic dialects, needs to be considered.
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Moan and mourn may well inhabit a semantic fuzzy spot. “Morn†probably doesn’t belong there.
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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Why, you’re absolutely right, David. I had no idea that moan could be used as a transitive verb, in the sense of bemoan. And yes, all three “in moaning”s come from countries with non-rhotic accents.
As far as simple pronunciation spelling goes, if I understand you correctly, the speakers might be properly using the concept and image of “mourning”, but choosing another word they know, “moaning”, that fits their pronunciation of the word, without associating “in moaning” with the creation of sound. This would make “in moaning” in these cases malapropisms. Quite possible. To prove it was reimaged, you would need to have evidence that moaning sounds were part of the image of the speakers. I assumed that moaning could mean only one thing, but I see that’s not necessarily true.
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Well, mourning itself need not be (and in a number of cultures, including some English-speaking ones) often will not and maybe even should not be silent. The expected sounds might range from sighs through moans to wails and cries.
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2009-04-10 15:13:57)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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Hold on a second. You can’t shout, squawk, murmur, speak, whisper, say, squeak, scream or otherwise vocalize a death, except poetically perhaps. Why should you be able to moan a death? You can speak, whisper and moan about or perhaps against it. Something just strikes me as strange here.
If mourning need not be silent, and if the users of “in moaning” are specifically imagining moaning when they use the phrase, then it constitutes an eggcorn plain and simple, doesn’t it?
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Well, if by “in mourning” they mean “in a state/process of vocal lamentation” rather than something like “in black clothing”, is that an eggcorn plain and simple?
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As to whether you can moan a death, the American Heritage Dictionary (online) allows the following transitive usages:
The usages you cited of moaning the deaths of cinema or of literature seem to me to fit fine in the first of those two usages. It is only in the second of them that moan is a vocalization verb like the others you cited, requiring a vocalizable object.
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2009-04-10 16:07:18)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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Yes, the first meaning from the American Heritage dictionary is the one I’m talking about. I agree that this is an accepted usage, including all the ones I put in my post. What I find difficult is imagining how this usage came about. It just looks to me like an error, or even an imprecision, that became so common that it is now accepted.
Ah, for the phrase “in moaning”, you think it’s possible that they meant only “in moaning”, and not “in mourning”, is that what you mean? I don’t buy it, for if so they need merely use “moaning” in the phrases above where “in moaning” was used. It might also be a legitimate switch only if the etymology of mourn indicated that it came directly from some sort of noise-making. “Mourn” seems to come from either remembering or dying, withering (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=mourn).
Last edited by burred (2009-04-10 16:46:04)
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That’s the way language typically changes, I think. Words or other structures are used in sightly different ways, ways a purist might call errors or imprecisions, and enough people adopt them that they become standard.
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The processes that go into eggcorns are not incidental to the understanding of standard structures.
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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Yes, it is the prescriptivist in me that has his back up. I think we’re more or less agreed about this, I won’t moan it further.
Eggcornistas are perhaps the only souls who hunt for “eggs” every day of the year except at Easter (and maybe sometimes even then). Have a good one.
Last edited by burred (2009-04-10 17:27:55)
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