Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
Having the horde over? Offer them horde overs. Want a peaceful wedding? Serve Hors Doves. Sprinkle liberally with apostrophes. No need to slave over them, they can just be horsed-over.
I suspect that there is no limit to the number of variations one might find on the very difficult to spell, let alone pronounce, hors d’oeuvre, which transliterates as “out of work”. It was adopted from French in the 18th century and indicates a fussy finger food to eat apart from the main courses of a meal. “Oeuvre” shares roots with “operation”, “opera” and “opus”.
Caterers:
Tray and Hors’doves Price Sheet
(http://www.completelycatered.com/trayandhors.html)
Wedding planning:
The trend of more diverse Hors Doves and deserts some times come in to play.
(http://blogs1.marthastewart.com/wedding … nders.html)
Wedding again:
right after the outdoor service you and your guests mingle on the patio where the hors ‘doves and drinks will be served
(http://www.madsens.ca/1b.htm)
Caterers:
The Camelettes offer a wide variety of hors dovers and, either sit down or buffet menus ranging from very eloquent to conservative. (http://www.redfezshrineclub.com/camelettes.htm)
Celebrity forum:
I wish I could have tasted some of those horde overs. They looked very good.
(http://blog.zap2it.com/ithappenedlastni … ity-2.html)
Xmas tips:
I have my family over on the evening of the 23rd, we just do horde-overs and drinks, which everyone helps with.
(http://www.msfacts.org/cgi-bin/dcforum/ … 9518&omm=5)
Cruise log:
It was Frank and Sue’s wedding anniversary complete with Champagne and Hor’s de Overs
(http://remedyandcrew.com/rxcruises/before99/geezer2.htm)
Memorial hike:
Many platters of Horse Dovers were spread out on a table, and eagerly nibbled by the 30 folks who attended.
(http://hi-michigan.org/newsletters/200662007JF.pdf)
Party report:
No inebriating drinks or substances, no rich foods, just minimalist horsed-overs and fizzy water and such
(http://www.pedroff.com/avalanche/tommi/index0119.html)
See also horse de combat
Last edited by burred (2009-05-18 14:12:03)
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Two thoughts:
(1) I have an uncle who consistently refers to small finger foods as “horse’s ovaries,” a joke based on knowing the written form for hors d’oeuvres. I wonder if any of these examples are similar (in-)jokes – particularly the last two.
(2) Some of these are fairly plausible as misspellings, particularly if either the typist or a spell-correction routine changed something like *oever to over. The punctuation, especially the liberal sprinkling of apostrophes, suggests that the users are aware that they’re reaching for a foreign, loan-word orthography.
Last edited by nilep (2009-05-19 10:48:27)
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Hors d’oeuvres is one of the most frequently savaged words in the English language. With a little effort we could multiply the list of the misspellings of the phrase. But is there a real eggcorn in the bunch? Perhaps “horde overs” qualifies (“I’m having a horde over for finger foods.”) “Hors devours,” another common misspelling, might also reach eggcorn territory.
I find the “hors d’oeuvre†eggcorns less than exciting. For two reasons. One is the outre French spelling of “hors d’oeuvre.†As we have often noted in this forum, a slope of familiarity is essential: the acorn should be further from the speaker’s semantic center than its eggcorn. In the best eggcorns, though, the acorn is just slightly outside of the speaker’s ken-the frisson we feel when we realize that the speaker does not know a word that we think he/she really should have known adds to the delectation. The only surprise with “hors d’oeuvres” is that anyone who doesn’t know French can spell it correctly.
Two, the misspellings of “hors d’oeuvres†are eye eggcorns, not ear eggcorns (“hors doves†is the exception). Ear eggcorns seem to lie closer to the mainstream of language evolution than eye eggcorns.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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When I was a kid, the joking pronunciation was always “horse doovers.” As a friend pointed out, it made “hors d’oeuvres” sound like “road apples.”
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I’ve got whore derbs in the oven if anyone wants to stop by…
https://twitter.com/micah1975/status/589197812581191681
OK not an eggcorn, but still.
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I’m fond of whores’ divorces. They’re petty, small, cost more than they’re worth, and there are usually too many of them.
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