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 2020-10-16 08:25:38

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

quesillo <> que si yo (Spanish)

We were eating, and talking about, the delicious (salty, stringy) Oaxaca cheese, which in Oaxaca itself is called quesillo (pronounced [ke’siyo], and literally translated, “little cheese”.) Someone had just said something like “Sí mucha gente lo adora” ‘Yes, lots of people love it,’ and several chimed in with expressions of agreement. My consuegro (my daughter’s father-in-law, the father of my son-in-law ―why don’t we have a good word for it in English?), had been a bit distracted and failed to join the chorus of agreements, so somebody turned to him and said “¿Y tú, Francisco?”, i.e. ‘What about you, Frank?’
.
He shook his head and replied, _¿Que si yo? Sí, claro, me gusta._ ― ‘Whether I [love it]? Yes, certainly, I like it.’ The question phrase is pronounced [ke si ‘yo], and with a tiny emphasis shift but the same rising intonational pattern, could also be “Oaxaca cheese?” Almost everybody at the table burst out laughing. Francisco insisted it was totally inadvertent, that he had only meant to say “You’re asking about me?”, not “You’re asking about Oaxaca cheese?”
.
Anyhow, it’s eggcorn-like in that the two sound almost identical, both fit the context, and the perpetrator meant only one and was unaware that others might be expecting, or at least likely to perceive, the other. It is, unfortunately, not adaptable to enough contexts that it could become established as a standard mistake for anybody, so it is not an eggcorn.

Last edited by DavidTuggy (2020-10-16 09:04:45)


*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 2020-11-15 22:14:19

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

Re: quesillo <> que si yo (Spanish)

Dunno. Could be an eggcorn. I could see some company branding their cheese “quesillo” to take advantage of both meanings (“little cheese” and “do I [like it”).


Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.

Offline

 

#3 2020-11-16 19:45:15

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

Re: quesillo <> que si yo (Spanish)

Haven’t we usually discounted puns to the point of discarding them?


*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

 

#4 2020-12-01 12:05:18

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

Re: quesillo <> que si yo (Spanish)

True. I wasn’t thinking of the company’s pun as being the eggcorn. I was thinking of the phrase being eggcorninsh and therefore being picked up by the company.


Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.

Offline

 

#5 2020-12-01 13:59:30

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

Re: quesillo <> que si yo (Spanish)

That is the genesis of a lot of puns, I think. At least in my family.


*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