Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
Once upon a time we had useful words like rich and poor and we could modify them with the odd extremely, very or quite. Over here, Margaret Thatcher replaced “poor” with “less-well-orf” and the likely next Prime Minister, David Cameron, with a measly £30 million fortune, describes himself as “relatively well off”. So there we have it – one term, “well-off”, replaces that emotionally loaded pair “rich” and “poor” and we hang onto a couple of weak modifiers. We shouldn’t be too surprised then, that words like pauper are not common currency and are therefore ripe for eggcoronation. At this point it would be gratifying to unleash a host of richly-detailed examples but instead all I find is an impoverished paucity:
At the age of eleven, I wrote in a school essay that “Mozart was buried in a porpoise grave”. For the benefit of one or two people on here, it was meant to …
www.leytonorient2.com/forum/topic.asp?A … C_ID=46487 – 33k – Cached
But my present favourite comes from EastEnders when ‘pauper’s > grave’ was translated as ‘porpoise grave’. One thing that has an enduring fascination for me …
www.electriceditors.net/edline/vol7/7-164.txt – 6k – Cached
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I’d call this a mondegreen, I think, rather than a (mondegrenous) eggcorn, or else it is a non-eggcornish malapropism. It doesn’t make enough sense to me for eggcornhood: what do porpoises contribute to the gravity of the situation?
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2009-05-30 12:20:21)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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I thought it might be possible that someone, somewhere, might just think it was an alternative way of describing burial at sea and in my self-deluded way assumed this was self-evident – clearly it isn’t and the notion of cheery cetaceans balancing boxes on their noses was not something I had envisaged. I shall try to be less obscure in future.
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Were paupers (incl Mozart) buried at sea?
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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There doesn’t seem to be any evidence for it, but anyone who hears “paupers” and assumes “porpoise” might not know that – few people are well-informed about matters relating to the disposal of the dead. Having said that, I have no strong conviction about genuine eggcornicity in this case – I simply found it amusing – and am quite content to lay it in the mondegreenery.
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The sources to which Peter’s examples are attributed, a child’s school essay and especially East Enders, make these classical (or Sheridan) malapropisms to my mind. (Recall that “Fay-Cutler malapropism” describes a speech error made by someone who knows both the intended target and the word accidentally produced, while a “classical malapropism” describes a production by a person (or fictional character) who doesn’t know the intended term.)
Aren’t mondegreens sung, by definition? Or is that just the most prototypical type?
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Both the child and whoever was writing the subtitles for Eastenders may have had some vaguely eggcornish imagery when writing “porpoise funeral” though if I were an ill-paid and possibly disgruntled sub-titler I suspect I might be tempted to amuse myself in this way.
I’ve always assumed that mondegreen applied to poetry, chants etc as well as songs. This is none of those, but ‘lay it in the malapropismery’ is no way to end a sentence.
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The eponymous mondegreen was from read poetry, and other often-cited examples are from other non-songs, even non-poems. (“I led the pigeons to the flag … and to the republic for Richard Stands†for instance.) I think the most general definition would be something like “a malapropism (well-established for the speaker) arising from an error of hearing or analysis†but indeed the prototype is from some memorized and rote-repeated piece of language, of which poems and songs are prime examples.
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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Yes, “some memorized and rote-repeated piece” is a much better description of the prototype than simply “a song.” I think that puts children’s essays and East Enders both on the periphery, but of course as Peter says, if you’re going to lay it on something, Mondegreen is the better target.
Speaking of Richard Stands, I’ve heard at least one child give the next line as, “Indy has a boat.”
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