Eggcorn Forum

I was listening to a podcast today, and the hosts were reading some listener mail which seemed to demonstrate the Nee/NAY eggcorn; The hosts are in the habits of giving nicknames to the contributing audience, and one of those nicknames included the word “nee”—in the typical usage where it separates a woman’s married name from her maiden name. A subsequent Email from the person with that nickname indicated that the word was misinterpreted as “nay.” (I’m currently unable to follow up with additional examples of this).

The above eggcorn—in which “nee” is mistaken for “nay”—makes a certain amount of sense. First, both words intercede a pair of words of like grammatical form; With “nay” it’s a matter or replacing one noun/ adjective/ etc. with another—as in the construction, “He is bright, nay brilliant.” With “nee,” a typical usage is this: Mrs. Smith nee Wilson. (“Nee” is taken from the French, and originates from the Latin nasci to be born).

I find it rather credible that a person who is unfamiliar with the word “nee” might hear the above example as: Mrs Smith, nay Wilson... as if the speaker had accidentally stated the wrong name and corrected himself. (Even a person familiar with “nee” might make this mistake). Clearly the meaning has changed, but the person making that error doesn’t know that.

Again, I haven’t yet located any written examples of this eggcorn.

-Joe Krozel

Last edited by jorkel (2009-04-30 11:38:42)