Eggcorn Forum

Discussions about eggcorns and related topics

You are not logged in.

Announcement

Registrations are currently closed because of a technical problem. Please send email to if you wish to register.

The forum administrator reserves the right to request users to plausibly demonstrate that they are real people with an interest in the topic of eggcorns. Otherwise they may be removed with no further justification. Likewise, accounts that have not been used for posting may be removed.

Thanks for your understanding.

Chris -- 2018-04-11

#1 2019-03-09 16:42:44

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2714
Website

doubleding down

Just ran across this in a news headline:

Covington High student’s legal team slams Washington Post editor’s note, says paper ‘double downed on its lies’

There are plenty of them

Barkley said James’ charges were justified, but he double-downed on his contention James is a whiner.

So I double-downed on connecting with my network. I reached out to my close network first to warm up.

and many more. I had also previously collected:

It was almost like he staged leaving to give himself an alibi and then double backed and entered through the back door.

He double backed and came and shot the guy. The Japanese pilot bailed out of his plane and we finished our dive without further incident.

Constructions with double might be especially prone to this confusion between compound verbs and verb + (directional) adverb structures, because double can also be an adjective, and the double-WORD-ed structure can fit if that combination is verbified. Here’s a return tripper for that kind of structure:

You can tell me what happened.” He paused before he said, “Was it a parent?” ¶ “Actually, it was two.” ¶ “They doubled team you?”

They doubled team Paul Pierce and dared the Celtics to find the open man.

“It was definitely one of the better halves we’ve played against them,” Merica said. “We were clearing out a little bit and giving some looks to Kyaira (Page) inside, and whenever they doubled-team down on her, were able to kick it out.”

Entertaining, anyway.


*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

 

#2 2019-03-10 16:13:28

yanogator
Eggcornista
From: Ohio
Registered: 2007-06-07
Posts: 237

Re: doubleding down

That reminds me of an extreme case from a woman I worked with years ago. She came into the room and asked, “Are you being have?” (behaving)


“I always wanted to be somebody. I should have been more specific.” – Lily Tomlin

Offline

 

#3 2019-03-11 09:00:03

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

Re: doubleding down

yanogator wrote:

That reminds me of an extreme case from a woman I worked with years ago. She came into the room and asked, “Are you being have?” (behaving)

Bruce, it looks like being have was considered at some length in an earlier thread. I looked to the roots of behave, for any conceivable logic for its being. Your coworker might have said, “Are you having yourself? Are you being had? Are you behad?”. Here’s the etymo from the Online ED:

behave (v.)
early 15c., reflexive, “conduct or comport” (oneself, in a specified manner), from be- intensive prefix + have in sense of “to have or bear (oneself) in a particular way, comport” (compare German sich behaben, French se porter). Cognate Old English compound behabban meant “to contain,” and alternatively the modern sense of behave might have evolved from behabban via a notion of “self-restraint.” In early modern English it also could be transitive, “to govern, manage, conduct.”

Dave, I looked for further enthusiastic doubled d’ing.

And now coming from the brother to his deputy, Law Mefor? It’s obvious that Nnamdi is a doubled dealing, 2 faced and doubled mouthed agent.
https://www.facebook.com/RadioBiafraInt … 5635968474

Fun, but it led me to this interesting twist, on the same page:

These people thought they can divert our attention by criticizing us but the have failed wolfly.

Maybe it’s just a woefully contagious spelling mistake, or a mondegreen. There are more than a dozen hits from Nigeria. At least one person did explicitly make a connection to lupine behaviour, however. Hard to say whether her comment was tongue-in-cheek or not.

adekunle failed like a wolf, he failed wolfly.
https://www.nairaland.com/3933306/worst … 17-found/1

I found another hit that might be slinking towards eggcorn territory.

They still got a shabby treatment, were unfairly called baby killers, and were subject to a wolfly inadequate veterans package.
U.S. election forum

Offline

 

#4 2019-03-11 11:14:14

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2714
Website

Re: doubleding down

You inspire wolfishly too much pleasure here among us, I think.
.
btw and fwiw, lots of these:

Similar to the reason for more player blackjacks, the chances of a player receiving a good card when double downing increases in a single and double deck

Are you losing respect for Serena Williams as she double downs on her US Open behavior?

U.s.w. (btw, why don’t we write a.s.f.?)

Last edited by DavidTuggy (2019-03-11 11:24:38)


*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

 

#5 2019-03-11 15:50:55

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2714
Website

Re: doubleding down

Relevant to the wolfly inadequate failures:

Knight of the Wolful Countenance, Protector to Princess Alana

Lord please replace the people here too or keep the wolfully ignorant In the BACK away from pleasant customers.

Whether the tests are wolfully designed to hurt minority students is in many ways a purely academic matter

A blend of willful woefulness?
.
(The last example, upon examination, turns out to be some kind of reading error: the referenced text clearly had willfully designed , with two l’s, but the l’s were somewhat messed up.)


*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

 

#6 2019-03-12 16:50:54

yanogator
Eggcornista
From: Ohio
Registered: 2007-06-07
Posts: 237

Re: doubleding down

DavidTuggy wrote:

U.s.w. (btw, why don’t we write a.s.f.?)

David, I only know U.s.w. from German (und so weiter), and haven’t seen it in English. Or are you just asking why we don’t have a parallel abbreviation in English for “and so forth”?

Bruce

Last edited by yanogator (2019-03-12 16:51:09)


“I always wanted to be somebody. I should have been more specific.” – Lily Tomlin

Offline

 

#7 2019-03-13 15:04:16

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2714
Website

Re: doubleding down

Yes.


*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

 

#8 2019-03-13 22:27:45

yanogator
Eggcornista
From: Ohio
Registered: 2007-06-07
Posts: 237

Re: doubleding down

We say etc.


“I always wanted to be somebody. I should have been more specific.” – Lily Tomlin

Offline

 

#9 2019-03-13 22:28:45

yanogator
Eggcornista
From: Ohio
Registered: 2007-06-07
Posts: 237

Re: doubleding down

Well, some people write ect., and many people pronounce it excetera (probably the same people who order an expresso).


“I always wanted to be somebody. I should have been more specific.” – Lily Tomlin

Offline

 

#10 2019-03-14 10:30:14

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2714
Website

Re: doubleding down

Right, on all counts. (But etc. is a little different from a.s.f: “and other things” is not the same as “and more of the same sort of things”.)


*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

 

#11 2019-03-15 09:14:54

yanogator
Eggcornista
From: Ohio
Registered: 2007-06-07
Posts: 237

Re: doubleding down

Most (maybe all) dictionaries give “and so forth” as a definition of et cetera.


“I always wanted to be somebody. I should have been more specific.” – Lily Tomlin

Offline

 

#12 2019-03-15 10:38:54

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2714
Website

Re: doubleding down

Merriam-Webster:

Definition of etcetera […]
1 : a number of unspecified additional persons or things
2 etceteras plural : unspecified additional items : odds and ends

It does also give:

Kids Definition of et cetera ¶ : and others of the same kind : and so forth : and so on


*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

 

#13 2019-03-15 12:58:56

yanogator
Eggcornista
From: Ohio
Registered: 2007-06-07
Posts: 237

Re: doubleding down

The Free Dictionary:

et cet•er•a (ɛt ˈsɛt ər ə, ˈsɛ trə)
adv.
and others; and so forth; and so on (used to indicate that more of the same sort or class have been omitted for brevity). Abbr.: etc.

Collins English Dictionary:

1. and the rest; and others; and so forth: used at the end of a list to indicate that other items of the same class or type should be considered or included


“I always wanted to be somebody. I should have been more specific.” – Lily Tomlin

Offline

 

#14 2019-03-27 14:25:10

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2714
Website

Re: doubleding down

Related:

Pandemonium had let loosed

He has let loosed the two seas (the salt water and the sweet) meeting together. Between them is a barrier which none of them can transgress

Mom jumps to her feet, runs up the steps, and stands in the doorway as the baby let looses with another mind-boggling scream.

The famous Bull Run, where bulls are let loosed after the frenetic runners on a course of a town’s streets;

defiance of indigenous human inhabitation inside the forests and let loosing the administrative disarrays leading to corruptive exploitations.

And so forth, weiter and on.


*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

 

#15 2019-03-27 23:26:53

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

Re: doubleding down

yada yada?


Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.

Offline

 

#16 2019-03-28 10:20:47

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2714
Website

Re: doubleding down

Yeah, yeah.


*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

 

Board footer

Powered by PunBB
PunBB is © 2002–2005 Rickard Andersson
Individual posters retain the copyright to their posts.

RSS feeds: active topicsall new posts