Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
Dredging involves pulling things up from the bottom of a body of water. But when it’s used metaphorically “dredged up” and “dug up” are pretty interchangeable. And either one would probably involve a lot of drudgery. Thus:
When I stepped into my sister’s old room I drudged up all those pointless fights we used to have.
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Good eggcorn. Extremely common on the web.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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Stephen Colbert lamented having to drudge up Donald Trump again on Tuesday night.
NYT
In this case it does seem to connote drudgery.
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Also relevant (and attested):
[So-and-so wouldn’t have stayed long at this job:] There’s not enough change or excitement, it’s just too trudgery.
Students often view Field Ed assignments as a trudgery.
drudging … trudging along drudgingly
I suspect this last one above might have been purposeful in the second part (jocularly correcting), occasioned by an inadvertent error on the first word.
those that live on the surface also teach those that trudge the bottom.
you would have to tredge through 150 pages of posts.
So slowly I tredge on…
I will tredge on forever if that is what it will take even if I find no answers,
We’d tredge back over the country.
Trek, trudge grudgingly, tread, trouble, what other words might be involved in these?
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2021-10-14 10:30:02)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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Trek, trudge grudgingly, tread, trouble, what other words might be involved in these?
Here’s a little handful; truckle, trundle, dawdle, dribble/drool, potter and pootle, waddle toddle and hobble. Where we going, Dave? I know we’re going slowly or reluctantly, but I’m not sure where.
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We’re heading into the swamp where the first life-forms grow (I think). I think a lot of stuff goes on sub-morphemically and it’s only when they rear their heads up enough to be identified that we even start thinking about them. Then we say, oh, it is a blend, or it is a malapropism, or it is a productive usage of this or that word-forming construction, or it is an eggcorn. Or something. Somehow, and I am by no means sure how, these words all have in common some meaning-sound connection to something unpleasant, awkward, or laborious, not sharp and clear, easy, and well-defined. They can all influence each other (I think) to enable us, or even encourage us towards coming out with funny words like those we have been documenting.
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2021-10-18 07:14:27)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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Ah, the old fuzzy spots then? Submorphemic phonaesthesia and so forth, but we like short words too? On the trudging drudgery front then, sledge could play a part; not the cheery children at play sort of course, but gritty stoical chaps pulling and pushing sledges through a dark Antarctic winter.
And let’s not forget plodge. Plodging can be fun of course, but plunging one foot after another through deepish water can quickly lose its charm.
Hmm. I knew a fellow in Devon by the name of Mudge. It seems his is a habitation name for one dwelling in or near a swamp, but I fear that won’t be much help. Interesting, though.
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Yes, exactly.
The cheery children, for me, would almost have to be on a sled rather than a sledge.
I didn’t know plodge at all. Lovely word.
And yes, Mudge is an almost perfect fuzzy-spot moniker for a swamp dweller.
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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This morning I heard yet again the expression grudge to grind and wondered whether to insert it into Slips etc, but decided it might lodge more comfortably here with its fuzzy pals, and others that follow irresistibly in its wake: gruff, grim, gruel, grief, grumble. grift, grunge, gruesome, grunt, grievance and grime to mention but a few.
I think they had a grudge to grind. Yes, we were given the dinner menu, but it was not necessary to order from it we could have ordered lunch.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not bitter or have any grudge to grind. I love the industry and the majority are playing by the rules.
I have no grudge to grind or past disputes and no business relationship with them which would lend me to be overly kind either.
But this time, Salve had a grudge to grind—and she fully intended to fight back against the man who tried to kill her, the man who succeeded in killing the …
Weary of sharpening that axe, some may grab a nearby grudge on which to hone a fine edge. It’s use seems to favour a US interpretation where having an ax to grind means having “a bone to pick” with someone, some sort of personal grievance.
Oddly enough, an extra e at the rear end of the axe means the expression is more likely used to signify one who is besotted by a particular opinion or belief which is employed at the slightest pretext, or even none at all.
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“Grudge to grind.” More like a what we have called an idiom blend. A blidiom.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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