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Chris -- 2018-04-11
Searches for “smoking mirrors” are clouded by a few legitimate and fairly common uses. Some are intentional puns.
“In the meantime, knowledge is power and I hope this piece will provide more pieces to the smoking mirrors the IRS uses to deceive the American people and hopefully will provide them with the courage to stand up to these criminals.” http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a … _id=0038Ec
“I am tired of Rick Beseler putting up these Smoking Mirrors in an attempt to fool the citizens of this county about how well things are going in the county. [...] It is time to Move out of the past and start looking at what Rick Beseler is really doing for our county, get past his smoking mirrors and we will probably be suprised.” http://myclaysun.com/node/2320
“All hype, and then you go inside the tent and you realize there isn’t anything in there special. Thats how alot of trainers are. All smoking mirrors. Then you meet them, talk to them, and dissect what they say and you can tell where they stand in knowledge, application, and intent.” http://lifeofapersonaltrainer.blogspot. … ality.html
“If you can see through the smoking mirrors that these on-site greedy sales people pitch, you will soon realize they are ripping everyone off.” http://www.creditscorequick.com/2008/03 … n-for.html
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Very nice new image! Smoking mirrors might require a bit more magic to produce than mere smoke and mirrors, but the idea is great. Or maybe you can use your smoking mirror to admire your smoking jacket. “Smoking mirrors” is the most striking of a series of new ways of presenting things, that includes “smoked mirrors”, “smoken mirrors” and “smoke in mirrors”, that are also out there.
So someone is trying to use smoken mirrors in politics to gain ground for themselves.
(http://politic101.blogspot.com/2008/05/gene-burr.html)
The question before us is whether or not it is an omen or just more smoken mirrors.
(http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/mortga … 15156.aspx)
Obama tax plan is all smoked mirrors.
(http://www.politicsdaily.com/2008/10/25 … rl-marx/16)
A short but sweet toe-tapping rat sings a toon about trying to see through the smoke in mirrors.
(http://citizen.nfb.ca/contextsearch/key … _nid=20849)
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I like “smoken mirrors” a lot. It looks like those adjectives ending in -en, like “waxen image.” Most instances of “smoken” are meant to represent the progressive tense, but there may be a few other examples of the past participle out there, like these lyrics from the Journey song “Midnight Train”:
A singer in a smoken room
The smell of wine and cheap perfume
http://www.lyrics007.com/Journey%20Lyri … yrics.html
Edit: I originally called this a “participial adjective,” and then started doubting the accuracy of that. The OED says the – en ending is still productive in the dialects of SW England, and means “made out of X.” But I guess that wouldn’t explain the lyrics of a band from San Francisco. All the lyrics sites I checked had the -en form.
Last edited by patschwieterman (2009-05-12 14:32:29)
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I’ve resurrected this thread because I just encountered this eggcorn for the first time: “Hollywood is smoking mirrors, I’m glad Lane exposed hollywood…”. This is the kind of mistake often made by people who don’t read much, picking up nearly all their language by ear; the same woman used the term “a season dancer” (instead of “seasoned dancer”) in the same post. Hmmm…could “season” for “seasoned” be an eggcorn too? Not a very exciting one, though.
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