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#1 2017-12-19 16:03:07

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2713
Website

hypogriffs and hypopotomi

(If the site I found this on is to be trusted) Thomas Cogswell Upham wrote in 1834 (in “A Philosophical and Practical Treatise on the Will”):

There may be complex ideas of things, as Mr. Locke has correctly maintained, which are chimerical; that is to say, which have nothing corresponding to them in outward objects, or in any thing else, such as the ideas of a hypogriff, dragon, centaur, gold lighter than water, &c.

Chimerical things may easily be seen as hypothetical, of course. It seems unlikely that Professor Upham was punning, (though volitional errors in a treatsie on the will would be especially fun). The prefix hypo – seems to me to have an aura of unreality, probably from hypothesis/-etical, hypocrite/-isy, and perhaps other forms. The horse-laugh of a hippos would blow it away, but Upham is not the only one to substitute hypo for hippo. There are many other usages of hypogriff (and images of the beast itself) on the Internet, and also of hypopotamus (which as Chesterton observed of the rhino, may indeed exist but looks as if he didn’t) in his various spellings (hypopotomus, the more Greek-looking hypopotamos).
.
Is it eggcornish? I suspect so, but don’t know. It seems likely that some usages are puns, which would mean that some are thinking that hypo- fits in entertainingly. If any saliently think of a hypothetical beast when they say it or especially when they spell it this way, and have forgotten the more standard spelling, I think it is an eggcorn. (An unusual one —a unique-corn, perhaps?)

Last edited by DavidTuggy (2017-12-19 18:57:26)


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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#2 2017-12-19 21:59:08

David Bird
Eggcornista
From: The Hammer, Ontario
Registered: 2009-07-28
Posts: 1690

Re: hypogriffs and hypopotomi

Unique-corns! That will come in handy now that nonce is out. Here’s another hypocryphal beast that appears to blend the apocrypha! with the hypothetical.

They also became associated with unusual sexual behaviour, a hypocryphal urban myth developing that a police raid discovered singer Mick Jagger in the act of performing oral sex on a chocolate bar
https://books.google.ca/books?id=JKf6Aw … 22&f=false

One would think that, instead of shutting out this unquestionable and allimportant fact by the screen of a conjectural and hypocryphal presumption to the contrary, a person in the place of the Lord Chancellor—who himself knew the fact as well as he knew that he was the Lord Chancellor of England—would consider the probable existice of such a fact in general
https://books.google.ca/books?id=IHljAA … 22&f=false

certain books of Enoch were found in Arabia Felix, in the dominions of the Queen of Seba. Tertullian roundly affirms, that he saw and read several pages of them ; and, in his Treatise de Habitu Mulierum, he places these books amongst the canonical ; but St. Jerome and St. Austin look upon them as hypocryphal.
https://books.google.ca/books?id=XlgSAA … 22&f=false

In fact, there is a story (probably hypocryphal—but it’s a good one anyway), of a plot to assassinate George Washington by (gasp) feeding him stew laden with the lethal tomato.
http://zionepiscopal.net/sermon/proper- … -30-36-43/

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#3 2017-12-20 07:44:26

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2713
Website

Re: hypogriffs and hypopotomi

Yes! Hypocryphal!


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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#4 2017-12-23 19:54:58

kem
Eggcornista
From: Victoria, BC
Registered: 2007-08-28
Posts: 2851

Re: hypogriffs and hypopotomi

Double yes. A blend and an eggcorn. And many examples.


Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.

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#5 2017-12-23 22:13:34

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2713
Website

Re: hypogriffs and hypopotomi

Here

Dec 20, 2007 – Leur relation prend de l’ampleur jusqu’au dépucelage de la demoiselle, qui se révèle être impertubablement frigide et benoitement stupide, quoique très sincèrement amoureuse. Attaché malgré tout à sa fragile personne, il doit bientôt se débattre contre le monstre hypogriffal (le mariage). L’envie de fuir …

le monstre hypogriffal . Sounds hippocryphical to me.

Last edited by DavidTuggy (2017-12-26 12:33:05)


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

Offline

 

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