Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
Not very common, but the change in imagery is clear. The first two are modified versions of the same homily.
because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well warm path
(http://www.macheist.com/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=277542)
You have to trust in something, your god, life, destiny, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the faith to follow your heart, even if it leads you off the well-warmed path.
(http://my.opera.com/smn35i/blog/)
We then entered the bog itself, following a well-warm path for about 2 km.
(http://www.ontarioinsects.org/oi%202001.pdf)
A curious malaprop: well-trammeled, with 600 ghits. A trammel is an impediment, a constraint or a shackle.
Ramona Falls is the most well-trammeled trail in the Mount Hood Wilderness. Children and adults like the variety the trail offers
(http://www.trails.com/tcatalog_trail.as … HGW078-009)
Written by 100 American poets, Isn’t It Romantic offers an engaging look at how contemporary poets respond afresh to the well-trammeled territory of the love poem.
(http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Isnt-I … 0974635316)
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I like this one – particularly handy (or, better, footy) in cold weather. There are a good few of the ‘warn’ variants too:
I am sure the land is owned by someone..but trust me, you can get to it…it may be trespassing, but there is a well warn path if you hop the wall at the …
www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=751919 – 209k – Cached
As for trammelled, are there any US dialects which don’t sound the ‘p’ in trample?
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Well-trammeled feels like an admixture of untrammeled, as in untrammeled wilderness, and well-traveled (which should apply to the traveler and not the trail), with a dash of well-trampled and well-tramped, and maybe some well-trimmed (as in well-maintained?).
I admit at the same time to being torn between trammelled, trammeled, travelled, etc. I’ve opted for the American speling spelling as indicated by the PunBB spel checker.
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I found this discussion of trammeled/trampled after hearing the eggcorn independently this morning and submitting a separate thread on the topic. (A word search helped locate this current thread after I already submitted my own). It seems that the trampled/trammeled discussion could have been submitted as a separate thread rather than buried within one about “well-worn”. At any rate, I can’t tell if the concensus here points to an eggcorn or a simple malapropism.
In the thread I started, the word “untrammeled” appears in public land legislation, so it would appear to be an intentional usage—and the usage of “untrampled” as a departure from that wording would appear to be an eggcorn.
Last edited by jorkel (2009-05-14 15:12:00)
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Interesting perspective, jorkel. Your suggestion is to keep all entries and contributions out in the open by submitting them as independent contributions. I admit that I’ve been fastidiously trying to submit any new discoveries as footnotes to other posts. The objective was to bring the old posts forward for review; often this can spark new ideas and new discoveries. It is also to rattle the chains of all the old contributors who asked to be notified when a reply was made. I don’t know if this was taken as a pleasant acknowledgement, or an irritation, by those contributors. For me, as I’m standing on the shoulders of giants, it is thrilling to blow in their ears and wait to see if I’m swatted off.
It is difficult or impossible to be sure that an entry has not been made previously in some obscure cranny of this board. I’ll try your protocol and see how that goes. It might have something going for it. It is now the case that the forum lets duplicate posts slide, as a kind of index of the prevalence of certain eggcorns. OK, I’m game.
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Yes, my preference is that large departures from the title eggcorn warrant their own post. But variants based on the same core sounds could probably be lumped. Reverse eggcorns can go either way… depending on whether they’re too trite to start a new thread.
Again, this is just my preference. I find that I may not read deep into a thread if the title doesn’t compel me to do so, and I assume the most important material gets posted first. If a revelation is made at the fifth post in a thread it might get overlooked, so it might as well start it’s own thread.
Also, too large a variety of info in the starting post can cause the comments to head off into multiple directions and things just get too fragmented to follow.
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