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exact » extract

Chiefly in:   extract revenge on , extract vengeance on

Variant(s):  extract revenge upon, extract vengeance upon

Classification: English

Spotted in the wild:

  • A British teenager allegedly brought down the Internet systems of a major US port while attempting to extract revenge on a fellow IRC user, a court heard today. (The Register, Oct. 6, 2003)
  • The third-seeded Scots will try and extract revenge upon second-seeded Hiram College for a five-game loss back on Oct. 13. (College of Wooster press release, Oct. 30, 2004)
  • The win extracted revenge on the Lady Bees, who had beaten Royalton (12-5, 10-5) in December. (Brecksville Sun Courier, Feb. 10, 2005)
  • “Perhaps we misjudged their primary concern,” he said. “It wasn’t resolving their credit issue. It was extracting vengeance on the PUC.” (San Francisco Chronicle, Apr. 15, 2001)
  • It is not courageous to wage war, a decision largely made by senior Bush officials who avoided serving in Vietnam, to pre-emptively attack Iraq based largely upon false intelligence and a son’s personal animus to extract vengeance on Hussein. (Missoulian, letter to the editor, Apr. 6, 2004)
  • I can certainly empathize with the desires that many people have to extract vengeance on Iraqis for the atrocities we have witnessed against Americans. (Johnson Co. Daily Journal, letter to the editor, May 27, 2004)

There is not much of a semantic leap from the relatively rare verb _exact_ (‘to call for forcibly or urgently and obtain’) to the more common _extract_ (‘to obtain by much effort from someone unwilling’). But a construction like _extract revenge/vengeance (up)on_ is clearly an eggcorn, since it could only be based on the idiom _exact revenge/vengeance (up)on_. We would normally expect _extract_ to take the preposition _from_, rather than _(up)on_ (typical of _exact_ and a few other similar verbs such as _inflict_ and _wreak_).

(See also exact » enact.)

| Comments Off link | entered by Ben Zimmer, 2005/02/19 |

congestive » conjunctive

Chiefly in:   conjunctive heart failure

Classification: English – questionable

Spotted in the wild:

  • Jacqueline Green has rheumatoid arthritis, conjunctive heart failure, and a nonmalignant brain tumor that causes hypertension. (Canton Repository/Associated Press, Jan. 2, 2002)
  • He had battled diabetes for years and died of conjunctive heart failure in an Arlington, VA hospital while being treated for respiratory problems. (Radio Recall, Feb. 2004)
  • On Oct 22 I received a phone call from the administrator at my mother’s ALF stating she was ill and had conjunctive heart failure. (Newsweek letter to the editor, Jan. 21, 2004)

Analyzed or reported by:

Marked questionable: may be better classified as a non-eggcornic malapropism because there is no apparent semantic justification for the use of _conjunctive_ (though it is perhaps influenced by _conjunctivitis_). Also, the phonological similarity is a bit tenuous (two entirely different phonemes in a stressed syllable).

| 2 comments | link | entered by Ben Zimmer, 2005/02/19 |

postpartum » post-pardon

Chiefly in:   post-pardon depression

Variant(s):  postpardon, post pardon

Classification: English – cross-language

Spotted in the wild:

  • I had a baby 4 months ago and he thinks my depression is baby blues (postpardon depression). (Dr. Bob forum, Apr. 13, 2001)
  • It is about 2 teenagers, the guy works in a shoe store and the girl is pregnant they tell their parents at Christmas time. They move into an old apartment building together, the teenage mother gets post-pardon depression. (Lifetime TV forum, Dec. 5, 2004)

Analyzed or reported by:

| 1 comment | link | entered by Ben Zimmer, 2005/02/19 |

wont » want

Classification: English

Spotted in the wild:

  • As Fritz matured, he also was allowed into the bedroom. Both he and Kira would sleep there during the day and night, as was their want. (A Cat Allergy Story)
  • If I was truly without hubris, how would I know the gods were speaking through me at all? Do we demonstrate hubris merely by knowing? Apparently, and not only that, my want is already hubristic. (Talkative Gods, An Interactive Theater Production.)
  • Something began to unravel in her mind, and instead of taking the time to create an intricately pithy and exhaustive mental account to be later used as the detailed mental production notes from which to glean her latest sociosatirical presentation as was her customary want, she let that rational thread fray, deciding that for once in her carefully plotted life the time to live in the moment was upon her. (A Serialized Chuck Swinger, The Experimental P.I., Adventure by Tim Gadzinski)

Analyzed or reported by:

AHD4 defines the noun _wont_ as follows:

> NOUN: Customary practice; usage. See synonyms at habit.[…]
ETYMOLOGY: Middle English, past participle of wonen, to be used to, dwell. See won1.

The eggcorn comes with a noticable shift in meaning.

| Comments Off link | entered by Chris Waigl, 2005/02/18 |

as soon » assume

Chiefly in:   just assume

Classification: English

Spotted in the wild:

  • To me, shoes were as essential to golf as a mother-in-law suite is to a house—they may be there, but you’d just assume forget about them when they’re occupied. (WorldGolf.com)
  • To be blunt, don’t go into to herpetology if you’re a whimp. For one thing, if you’re afraid of crocodiles, you probably just assume not study them up close. (monster Career Advice)
  • Given such outdated means of travel, I would just assume stay at home. (link)
  • I have a husband that would just assume eat, sleep, and work than have anything to do with me. (link)

Analyzed or reported by:

In the Livejournal dot_pedantic thread, commenter oneironaut suggests

> The originator was probably thinking of ‘assume’ in the sense of ‘to take upon oneself’ or ‘to undertake the duties of (an office)’ and probably didn’t know the wording of the expression at all, rather than knowing and trying to improve it, since it’s a shortened form of an idiom that isn’t even itself literally meaningful.

Mark Liberman agrees on the last point:

> If you think about it, “just as soon” isn’t exactly transparent. “…would equally early [Vb] …”? I don’t think so.

| 5 comments | link | entered by Chris Waigl, 2005/02/18 |
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