Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
Here’s one for the eggcorn epicure (“Ah, c’est exquisite, monsieur.â€). It’s as rare as truffles, though-I can only find two examples on the web:
Post on motorcycle forum “They then had the cheap to ask for 185 quid for the service.â€
Computer forum “they have the cheap to fill up a whole display area with them at a ‘full challenging price’ hoping to suck people into buying them thinking they are on specialâ€
The phrase should be, of course, “have the cheek to.â€
The replacement comes as no surprise: “cheek,†meaning impudence, has almost dropped out of modern English. It mainly perseveres in the idioms “have the cheek to†and “a lot of cheek†and in the adjective “cheeky.†The phrase “cheeky monkey†may be the best British export since the Beatles (Sorry, Pat, the Atomic Kittens don’t make the cut.).
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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