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copyright » copywrite

Classification: English

Spotted in the wild:

  • A few years ago, the Federal Communications Commission tried to force use of the “broadcast flag” on the manufacturers of any device that could theoretically play copywrite-protected media. (link)
  • All of our images are copywrite protected and watermarked, although the purchased images will not be. (link)
  • starting today, i need to put copywrite on my snapshots.. (link)
  • still being relatively new to the title, I’m finding myself asking questions that are not gonna be answered unless I go back-issuing (copywrite, me, 2005) […] Story is less superhero-y (i’d copywrite that, but it’s pretty shitty, so I’m leaving it wide open to y’all — go for it) than most DC stuff I’m reading (link)
  • That being the case, I request that any use of these materials be cited, but withhold copywrite protection for any non-profit or academic uses, either within the Marshall Islands, or elsewhere. (A Survey of Marshallese Nutrition)
  • www.21c-online.com is published and Copyrighted 2000 by OnLine Publications.com, Inc., Miami, Florida. (link)
  • Disputes involving domains that are copywritten and/or trademarked are handled through the ICANN approved UDRP. These complaints will be handled by an approved third party arbitrator and GKG is required to abide by this decision. This policy cannot be used for non-copywritten or trademarked domains. (link)
  • If a user of the site is sharing copywritten works they do not have permission to share, they are breaking US laws by doing so. […] Recently I have even begun filtering searches for obvious copywritten titles in order to curb this abuse of the site. The problem with peer-to-peer file sharing is that there is no way to find out if what a user is sharing is copywritten (and done so without permission) without actually downloading the content from them. (Techreview.com)

Analyzed or reported by:

_Copywrite_ is employed as a modifier, a noun, or a denominal verb (in the sense, register/display a copyright (notice)). Eggcorn users run into problems when they need the past participle of the verb: both, _copywrited_ and _copywritten_ are common.

Occasionally, we encounter the a stray _copywright_:

> Besides, the notion of “harmonizing patent laws” rings more of globalism and consistency than copywright infringement. (link)

This may be a hypercorrection (see _playwright»playwrite_)

See also copy writer»copyrighter.

| 1 comment | link | entered by Chris Waigl, 2005/02/25 |

mind » mine

Chiefly in:   open-mined , go through one's mine

Classification: English – questionable – final d/t-deletion

Spotted in the wild:

  • CWM (Christian Witch Ministry) is Spiritualy open mined to all things. (link)
  • William Hodge, a former UW-Oshkosh anthropology professor, says there are natural explanations for most phenomena, but he remains open-mined. (link)
  • It is hereby declared that the Carleton University Debating Society exists to the following ends: * To foster clearheaded and open-mined discussion among the individuals, communities, and organizations of Carleton University on issues relating to Carleton University, the City of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and the World; (link)
  • The city becomes an multicultural city and is the most open-mined city in Australia as the city welcomes different races, cultures, classes, and sexualities from many parts of the world, it is most agreed that it is one of the most livable city in the world. (link)
  • I would offer advice but truth be known, fishing interests me just slightly less than football. But something else runs through my mine now. I am fascinated by their own sense of cohesiveness, achieved just moments before the actual departure and long before the weekend itself begins. (link)

I originally thought this was just a typo often committed by writers of personal ads and followers of alternative spiritual paths, but it’s use is apparently a lot more widespread than that - I found it on government sites, debate clubs, travel guides, etc. There is an actual mining term “open mine” which gives the mis-uses a plausible origin, but while “open mine” is not rare, the phrase “open mined” does not appear to be a common form of the phrase in the context of mining.

[update] Thanks for feedback from David Romano, who discovered several hundred occurrences of the phrases “running through my mine”, “going through my mine” and “on my mined”. He confirmed that a large number of these are “mind” related. A large % of these usages are either in transcriptions of song lyrics or in the context of urban slang so the spelling could be intentional. Perhaps we can attribute the origins of this back to Mark Twain, who in his short story “A True Story, Repeated Word for Word as I Heard It” (1892) has one of his characters say “dey’s somefin on my mine”.

[added by Arnold Zwicky, 22 July 2007] Frank McQuarry writes with an occurrence of “of like mine”: Where else will you see this picture? This was done on July 14th and today being the 22nd and I have yet to have seen this image any place else. Of course I will pass it on but to whom . . . To folks of like mine. So here we are again preaching to the choir. (link)

| 2 comments | link | entered by vinylrake, 2005/02/25 |

wind chill » Winchell

Chiefly in:   Winchell factor

Classification: English – questionable

Spotted in the wild:

  • Isn’t it just a tad convenient that Winchell’s factor of 80 is 1/100th of his date of deglaciation, which allows his scheme to match Hotchkiss’s minimum 100 years of age? (soc.history.medieval, Jun 12, 2003)
  • Much more freedom that way; allows you to wear pants in Kansas when the Winchell factor is 40 below. (alt.religion.kibology, Mar 2, 1999)

Analyzed or reported by:

Richard Fontana admits:

> I remember thinking (in third grade) that the Wind Chill Factor
> was the Winchell Factor.

Still on alt.usage.english, Maria Conlon analyzes:

> By the way, we also have a Winchell Factor, but we don’t pronounce it
quite that way. Anyway, I think the Factor is a creation of TV stations
that want to make even the weather more sensational a story than it is.

This eggcorn seems to stem from a pun, but some occurrences may be genuine.

| 3 comments | link | entered by piedrasyluz, 2005/02/24 |

charm » champ

Chiefly in:   works like a champ

Classification: English – questionable

Spotted in the wild:

  • We just installed the new version of Exchange in the test lab, and it is working like a champ. (Heard in the wild, at my job, and it is spreading like wildfire.)
  • But if you use the program to recover deleted or corrupted images, it works like a champ. (PC World)
  • Lots of work still needed to be done to get the waterguns up to snuff; Byron modified one by finding a way to insert a long hose into the water intake and take the Chinese spring out and modify it with parts from our dead Italian watergun and voila it worked like a champ. (link)

I am fairly certain that “Works like a charm” is the original, but interestingly enough, a Google search of both phrases occurring in the same resource returns a shocking number of results:

Google:”works like a champ” “works like a charm”

Over 1,780 results!

[Entered by Neil and edited by Ben Zimmer. Marked “questionable” because it should probably be classified as an idiom blend, combining _works like a charm_ with _(do something) like a champ_.]

| 3 comments | link | entered by Ben Zimmer, 2005/02/24 |

playwright » playwrite

Classification: English

Spotted in the wild:

  • A man who played a part of my youth passed away last week. It was playwrite Arthur Miller. Maybe his most famous play was “Death of a Salesman”. But the one that’s most important to me was “The Crucible”. (link)
  • The haunting story of playwrite Oakley Hall’s life and work, full of rich insights into the loss that occurs when a creative voice is suddenly silenced by tragedy. (Brandenton Herald, Jan. 23, 2005)
  • It follows the story of Barton Fink, played by John Tuturro, who is a playwrite who has a hit show in NY in 1941, which attracts the attention of Hollywood moguls. (link)
  • Barrie is working as a playwrite, a talented one who has not been able to grasp that story that captures the imagination of his audience. (Blogcritics.org)
  • Vision Theatre Players Guild presents the comedy “Trading Spaces” by local playwrite Anna Lussenburg Mar. 3, 4, 5 at the Cochrane RancheHouse. (Cochrane Times, January 26, 2005)

Analyzed or reported by:

Several major dictionaries define _playwright_ laconically as “a person who writes plays”, which doesn’t help to clarify the matter for those who consult them.

The Columbia Guide to Standard American English explains:

> A _playwright_, like a _shipwright_, makes or builds something (the word _wright_ comes from an Old English form of _worker_ and is related to _wrought_); to _write plays_ is to do _playwriting_, although the _playwrighting_ spelling also occurs. Edited English usually insists that a maker of plays is a _playwright_ and that the craft be called _playwriting_, not _playwrighting_.

| 1 comment | link | entered by Chris W. (admin), 2005/02/23 |
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