Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
You are not logged in.
Registrations are currently closed because of a technical problem. Please send email to
The forum administrator reserves the right to request users to plausibly demonstrate that they are real people with an interest in the topic of eggcorns. Otherwise they may be removed with no further justification. Likewise, accounts that have not been used for posting may be removed.
Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
The origin of “to jilt†is unknown; it’s a cant word that first appeared in the late 17th C, and – to my surprise – the OED says that it was originally applied only to women (as the jilters) when meaning “to capriciously cast off a lover.†Today it pops up most frequently as part of a few nearly fixed phrases (jilted lover/boyfriend/girlfriend/wife/husband, etc.) and therefore seems ripe for eggcorning. To suddenly find yourself a jilted lover can certainly be a “shock,†a real “jolt†to the system. “Jolted lover†alone gets 90 unique hits, so I suspect that all uses of the reshaping must range well into the lower hundreds. Examples:
He sounded like a jolted lover who was putting the best possible spin on an affair that went wrong fast.
http://rangers.lohudblogs.com/2008/08/0 … o-rangers/
Sakwa (Kang Yi-Kwan, 2005) is a nice Korean romantic melodrama featuring Moon So-ri (Oasis, Lee Chang-Dong, 2002) as a jolted lover who buries herself in a consolation marriage.
http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/conte … -2006.html
As she turns towards the camera, her face transforms from that of a smilingly caricature to the tearful visage of a jolted lover, and but for a moment the film’s misogynist formula is rebutted.
http://books.google.com/books?id=9ku7BK … t&resnum=7
[I retyped this, but the “smilingly caricature†is in the original. The passage is from Queer Asian Cinema by Andrew Grossman, p. 253.]
My girlfriend told me that when that happens, a superstition is that the owl is sending a message from a jolted lover and is coming to put a hex on you, or trying to lure you outside to laugh at you!!!!!!!
http://www.tbd.com/group/50/discussion/ … ent-965389
Offline
I love it!
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
Offline
A great eggcorn, a great metaphor.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
Offline
The names of Adam and Eve can stand for their respective genders. But the sons of Adam and daughters of Eve feel a bit sheepish about turning this exalted founding pair into gendered references in rough-and-tumble, often sexually explicit street talk. For this less noble kind of chit-chat, English speakers have recourse the folk mythology of Jack and Jill. Jack has loaned his name to a variety of everyday terms (tools that replace human labor, self-pleasuring, playing cards, etc). Jill, as Pat notes above, has been used to describe females with popular social careers. These self-employed Jills have given us, it appears, the word “jilted.â€
Jilting, a capricious abandonment of promises, leads to chilly relationships. The past tense of the verb, in the minds of some web authors, makes this cold-heartedness explicit.
Soap opera blog: “Phillip is a chillted loverâ€
Blog entry: “you cheated…you chilted somebodyâ€
Book comment: “After ten years the chilted lover, Steve, now all of a sudden sees how pathetic Dalton’s life looksâ€
Apple operating systems forum: “Ok, I feel chilted. The website has my plan at 9.95, but through the iPad app it’s 14.99â€
Car manual review—title of post: “Feeling a bit Chilted â€
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
Offline