« previous page
next page »

segue » segway

Classification: English – cross-language

Spotted in the wild:

  • Another segway into the introduction is to start it with a little anecdote (or story). (BookRags, How to Write a Five Paragraph Essay)
  • Overall, this little book offers much as a solid segway into intro Perl programming for bioinformatics. (link)
  • It was a small room, just next to the front desk. So, sometimes I’d catch a wink here or there and just drift off. This dream always segwayed into the next dream. (link)
  • A prior degree of knowledge of both wine and wine politics is needed to get the best out of this film, as otherwise the shaky hand-held camera work, flitting from language to language (with subtitles) and relentless segwaying of one story into another makes the “plot” difficult to follow. (wine-pages.com)
  • The second X-Files movie may or may not reveal straight undisputeable facts, but the last episode was still a great closer and segway into the movie, which I sure as hell can’t wait for. (allscifi forum, March 10, 2004)
  • The rest of the paragraph should be spent arguing this one point. Don’t segway into another point. You want coherent writing, not chaos. (Izzy's Guide to Starting & Running an Underground Paper)

Analyzed or reported by:

_Segway_ is a brand name for a motorized one-person stand-up vehicle reminiscent of a wheelchair or a lawn-mower. On the other hand, _segue_, a borrowing from Italian, means “move smoothly and unhesitatingly from one state, condition, situation, or element to another”, or, as a noun, denotes such a transition.

In some of the occurrences of the eggcorn, the (simpler) substitution of the semantically convincing _way_ for the obscure second syllable _-ue_ might be have happened. At the end of Mark Liberman’s article, Ben Zimmer and Rich Baldwin show that the change in spelling can be unrelated to and predate the motorized contraption.

| 4 comments | link | entered by Chris Waigl, 2005/08/18 |

landlubber » landlover, land lover

Classification: English

Spotted in the wild:

  • “Back Away From Me Loot Ya Land Lover! Pirate Treasure Surprise Jul 13 ‘03″ (link)
  • “Devised to pass the long hours at sea, our Captain’s Puzzles will keep even the land lover occupied.” (link)
  • “ARRRRRRRRRRRR! What about pirate talk, ye pansy landlover? Think of all the cool words pirates say, especially words essential to the English language.” (link)

Analyzed or reported by:

  • Ken Lakritz (link)
  • Brian Kane (On the newsgroup soc.motss, 15 August 2005)
  • Richard A. Strauss (link)

The “lubber” part of “landlubber” is opaque, which makes it ripe for reshaping into the more sensible “lover”. It’s hard to know how frequent this eggcorn is, since “land lover” and “landlover” have many literal occurrences, with the meaning ’someone who loves (the) land’.

| Comments Off link | entered by Arnold Zwicky, 2005/08/17 |

renowned » reknowned

Classification: English

Spotted in the wild:

  • Reknowned Neo-Nazi activist held in Blount County jail. (link)

Stemming from ‘know(n)’.
There are also a small number of Google hits for ‘reknowed’.

| 1 comment | link | entered by Sravana Reddy, 2005/08/17 |

right of way » right away

Classification: English

Spotted in the wild:

  • Where on the race course can a port tack boat have right away on a Starbord tack boat?? (Megabyteclass forum, Feb 18, 2003)
  • 1. Tower lane has right away on exit off track. (Nl'akapxm Eagle Motorplex, Track Policies and Rules 2005)
  • The only real down side to Arkansas is the drivers! Beware size has right away on Arkansas interstates. (epinions.org, Dec 23, 1999)
  • 5 - Singles and twosomes have no right away and are not allowed during busy playing times. The pro shop will endeavor to place all players into groups of three or four. (VetsGolf.com, fees & rules)
  • I am a law abiding citizen that has been frustrated by a neighboring business that uses our private road for their parking although they are aware that they have no right away nor legal egress to their property through our property. (link)
  • As in Europe the ships in the zone have right away on those crossing. In fact there is a specific “shall not impede” for sailboats. (rec.boats.cruising, Jul 2, 2001)

Analyzed or reported by:

TakenEvent’s original sighting was of a “woodburned and hand carved sign seen at a local fair” which read:

> Caution: Cowboys have right away!

| Comments Off link | entered by Chris Waigl, 2005/08/14 |

lowdown » load down

Chiefly in:   give so. the load down on sth.

Variant(s):  loaddown

Classification: English – final d/t-deletion

Spotted in the wild:

  • Could someone give me the load down on the new Michigan recruits and comment on them? (rec.sport.basketball.college, July 7, 1994)
  • I had trouble with Tantras amongst other places.. Where is it? What is it? And what language do they speak there? Could anyone give me the loaddown or direct me to a place where they got handy short info on the place.. and a map? Preferably just a few pages of info, not a whole book (well, a few pages in a abook is fine). (PLANETADND Forums)
  • Hey Larry, settling in to the Michigan cold already and I thought I would give you the load down on the trip. (link)
  • I have heard about the deluxe version having a 401(k) account. Can some one give me the load down on that? Does it does make graphing easier, to see the percentage of contributions and/or current value easier? (comp.os.ms-windows.apps.financial, Mar 17, 1998)
  • Could anyone give me the loaddown on Ottawa. I’d be attending Le Cordon Bleu this winter and I have no clue as to its school’s location in proximity to anything else. (Ottawakiosk.com Forum, Dec 16, 2004)

Analyzed or reported by:

The image of acquiring information by downloading it has become banal.

| Comments Off link | entered by Chris Waigl, 2005/08/12 |
« previous page
next page »