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 2020-09-04 13:21:42

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

"gaping yaw" < "yawning gap"

I had collected several examples of this substitution over the years (several in published materials) and I still do not know what to make of it.

Obama Sesame — The gaping yaw of discretion shown by Obama after high-level meetings with sitting presidents.

an image of the gaping yaw of the baby’s mouth

Louder and louder, the din grew, bouncing off the towering walls, filling the vast, gaping yaw of a workspace.

the stoker used to get hot shovelling coal into the huge, gaping yaw of the furnace.

This huge, gaping yaw of cushiony comfort is a unique phenomenon in the development of skiing. It’s a four-buckle, overlapping shell design that combines the …

I get overtones of a gaping maw, a gap (yawning or not), the extreme aperture of your mouth when you yawn, and so forth. ajaw < ajar is also relevant.
.
I am used to yaw as meaning rotation around a vertical axis (i.e. turning NSEW rather than heading up/down or tipping side-to-side) It seems that the language may be changing here, however with yaw adopting a new meaning. The thesaurus.plus site contains this: “Gape is a synonym for yaw. You can use “Gape” instead a verb “Yaw”. ” Another online dictionary gives “be wide open” as a definition. Of course the examples above use the word as a noun rather than a verb, but it fits this idea: a state of being wide open. Influence from yawn seems likely enough; perhaps yawn could be taken as a passive-participial form of this verb (like seen from see or born(e) from bear)?
.
Have any of the rest of you run into this?

Last edited by DavidTuggy (2020-09-04 13:24:54)


*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 2020-09-05 05:35:11

Peter Forster
Eggcornista
From: UK
Registered: 2006-09-06
Posts: 1222

Re: "gaping yaw" < "yawning gap"

A curious mixture indeed, David. I half expected ‘yawning gape’ rather than gap in your title, which would have provided a near-complete phonetic anagram which my ear seemed to yearn for.
Yaw I rarely encounter except in a nautical setting. I’ve always imagined it as related to yacht, which the Online Etymological Dictionary suggests is derived from:

1550s, yeaghe “a light, fast-sailing ship,” from Norwegian jaght or early Dutch jaght, both from Middle Low German jacht, shortened form of jachtschip “fast pirate ship,” literally “ship for chasing,” from jacht “chase,” from jagen “to chase, hunt,” from Old High German jagon, from Proto-Germanic *yago-, from PIE root *yek- (2) “to hunt” (source also of Hittite ekt- “hunting net”).

‘Yaw’ itself is “perhaps ultimately from Old Norse jaga, Old Danish jæge “to drive, chase,” from Middle Low German jagen (see yacht).” In nature the chase, the hunt, usually ends with the prey caught in the jaws of the predator, which most Germanic tongues would pronounce as yaws. Yawning is one of the things you can do with your yaw, perhaps.

Offline

 

#3 2020-09-07 13:11:13

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

Re: "gaping yaw" < "yawning gap"

The OED recognizes a verb with this meaning:

1. intransitive. To be wide open; to yawn.
1596 T. Lodge Wits Miserie 71 His browes bent, his hand shaking, his nostrils yawing.
1596 T. Lodge Wits Miserie 103 A fellow stretching himselfe at his window, yawing, and starting. 2. transitive. To utter with the mouth gaping or yawning.
1917 S. Graham Priest of Ideal v. 67 The precentor in the box beneath the pulpit yawed out the tune.

Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.

Offline

 

#4 2020-09-08 06:56:48

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

Re: "gaping yaw" < "yawning gap"

So it might well be a nominalizing development of a survivor from centuries ago. OK, then.
.
That last example makes me think of the verb yawp , which we had not mentioned. Is it derived from this notion of opening into a gap also? Like squawk , it feels vaguely onomatopoeic to me.

Last edited by DavidTuggy (2020-09-22 12:05:08)


*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