Sanskrit » sandscript

Classification: English – final d/t-deletion

Spotted in the wild:

  • adam and eve were not the original two in creation. lilith was edited out of the bible, but she is in the old sandscript documents antd the old jewish religion. you can probably find it in google somewhere. (Comparative Religion forum, Feb 21, 2005)
  • Yama is the sandscript term encompassing concepts of social restraint such as non-violence, non-stealing, truthfulness, non-attachment and moderation. Niyama, also a sandscript term, refers to internal restraints including contentment, purity, self-study, discipline and surrender. (The Yoga Loft)
  • One question - does anyone here have the ability to write sandscript, arabic, or something along those lines….? (WipeOut Forum, March 31, 2004)

On May 15, 2005, Christophe B. enquired via e-mail:

> Are you interested only in written or also spoken eggcorns?
>
> I am very intrigued by some wods I hear spoken by people who are intelligent but who clearly do not read, so that they use words from a average- to advanced vocabulary in a way that reflects having only heard them… an example of this is one I often hear: “Sandscript” (for Sanskrit). […]

Well, first of all thanks for the excellent eggcorn _Sanskrit»sandscript_. The examples show that it does indeed exist in written form as well, with the variants _sand script_ and _sandscrit_.

Second, Christophe’s question is an interesting one. To me, a reshaping of any aspect of a word or idiom (spelling, pronunciation, …) that is clearly linked to a new way to make sense of the original material, is much more eggcornish than a random misspelling that just happens to coincide with a pre-existing term. This would be true even in cases where the spelling _doesn’t_ change (where homographs, like _tear_/_tear_ etc., are involved): these would then have to be classified as “hidden eggcorns”.

| link | entered by Chris Waigl, 2006/05/16 |

Commentaries

  1. 1

    Commentary by christophe brunski , 2006/05/28 at 4:29 pm

    One often hears “sandscript” for sanskrit, usually said by those who have heard the word but never seen it in print. what is more interesting about this is the fact that this eggcorn is rooted in a popular, vague notion of the exotic, that everything ancient happened in the middle of a vast desert expanse ranging from egypt to india to china… hence the sand. in fact script is of pure latin etymology, while sanskrit is based on PIE roots which, compounded, mean something like “well-formed.”

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