Eggcorn Notes

This page is a jotter for notes about possible eggcorns, candidates for the Eggcorn Database. Comments, criticism and requests (concerning individual eggcorns or the entire site) can be added on the discussion page. If you register first, you can sign your comments with a signature button, and they will show up in the RSS2 feed under your username. — chris waigl 2005/02/16 13:10

• mano a mano – see Zwicky, LL. Switching between hand and man – hard to document. What about mano a mano in the sense of being quits (only sense I’d known it), as in the famous tango, where it’s usually translated as “even Steven”.
• spawned»spurned – see commenter CA McGee. There’s apparently no English verb derived from /spur/ (unlike in German). Sense of spurn: reject, spurn, freeze off, scorn, pooh-pooh, disdain, turn down (WordNet); of spawn: engender, breed, spawn – (call forth) ⇒ cause, do, make (give rise to; cause to happen or occur, not always intentionally; “cause a commotion”; “make a stir”; “cause an accident”) (WordNet). Likely a blend with spurred. resolved by Ben Zimmer via spur»spurn
• wreak»reek havoc – see commenter Suzanne; clarify semantics: reek of?
• drug addict»attic – see commenter david toccafondi. Problem: the semantics? Maybe in the sense of the attic being a place where unneeded objects are stored.
• parity»parody – see Mark Liberman at LL. Semantics? Eggcorn or malaprop? One of the refs is here
• the choked/chock/shock/jock etc -full complex. Untangle.
• ones «» once LL
• sealed»ceiled (dito) – understand
• load«»lode (dito) – explore
• infest»infect (dito) – malaprop?
• supposedly > supposably (dito) – morpheme eggcorn? something else?
• anecdotal > antidotal (dito), same question
• horde«»hoard – nothing on LL, really?; do some searching
• minuscule»miniscule – just a misspelling? do some etymology search. see commenter david

… or something related but different? All these need to go into the database, of course, but new categories/labels, and sometimes a slighlty better understanding are needed.

• dull as dishwater»ditchwater or vice versa – which is the original? GHits (English pages): 8500/939 See Céline at Naked Translations; update: my post – plus clearly eggcory dishwasher.
• troupe»troop, (a real) trouper»trooper – see commenter Samuel Ethan Fox. Paul Brians has this, and so does The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. Nothing on LL. Troupe seems to become rarer. Everything quite clear, except that real trooper has 19,200 gHits[en] versus 990 for the presumed original. This usage site lists a real trooper. An eggcorn/original ratio of 0.05 is way too small to call this an eggcorn. Folk etymology? Or rather, has the entire idiom been shifted over from trouper to trooper? That both come from Fr. troupe doesn’t clarify things. Examples of troupe»troop are here and here.

Some eggcorns are problematic because they are shifting figures of speech where it is unclear what drives the reshaping – not necessarily a dregree of ignorance and individual creativity.

• ditchwater»dishwater see above
• Hobson’s»Hobbesian choice – see LL and chez moi

• beings used to introduce adverbial clauses. See commenter J. Glauner. Problem: what is the original? Seeing as? Eggcorn or new conjunction in the making?
• credentials»crudentials – unclear, but noted anyway

These are, for some reason, chiefly medical terms

• old-timer’s disease, carpool tunnel syndrome, circus-sized – comments by Ben Zimmer.
• several in the comments at Critical Mass
• very close veins, Screaming Mighty Jesus LL

• chiffarobe»Shiffer robe – see Zwicky at LL. One Ghit: http://thegerm.com/whatsold.htm
• tagalog»tag along – see Zwicky at LL. Zero Ghits.
• court»caught of law – homophony; maybe inadvertent. Still, to end up in front of a court of law, one has to get caught first.
• artificial inspermination – see commenter at Critical Mass. One Ghit on Groups here

Imortant souce for those Laurence Horn’s post to ADS-L.

• and»in :
  • in this day in age (see commenter David Vinson)
  • by in large (see Ben Zimmer)
  • one in the same (dito) + LL
  • part in parcel (dito)
• in»and
  • …

These need a rethink of the entry structure, since usually the eggcorn and the original coincide. Only reanalysis takes place.

• know the score – see ADS-L saved post, LL
• the pen is mightier than the sword etc. – Zwicky on LL somewhere
• the die was cast – dito

These will be entered any moment now.

• put on hold»holed
• airways«»airways (chez moi)
• locus» locust (dito)
• bear»bare (hugs …) (dito)
• Peace Corps»core (dito) Done
• pear-shaped»pair-shaped (dito)
• reckless»wreckless (driving)
• averse»adverse to
• frailing»flailing the banjo – see Ralph at the Sacred River
• run-of»off-the-mill (should be of»off)
• run the gamut»gambit
• social morays – see Zwicky, LL. Understand the phonological part now, but what does the eggcorn mean? There seems to be a fish of that name (and that’s the solution) Done
• copyright»copywrite LL + comment done
• in earnest»Ernest (dito)
• smarmy»swarmy (dito)
• fare»fair (dito)
• conscious»conscience (dito) and Susanna Moore’s In the Cut on Amazon and cited on Critical Mass
• by-election»bi-election (dito)
• batten down the hatches»batter down the hatches commenter Philip Newton
• bottom»button line commenter Anthony
• (a rolling stone gathers no) moss»mass commenter such
• as was X’s wont»want commenter J Glauner done
• as soon»assume commenter allison done
• beyond the pale»pail commenter David Scriven
• intercept»intersect – search maybe delicate; noted by Firas on #wordpress.

This list can be completed freely by everyone:

• defenestration»defense station Critical Mass
• …
• …

More from a.u.e in |this thread, eg:

• “That doesn’t jive with what you said before.”
• “I won’t bear the blunt of it this time.”
• “You’ve got to cut the mustard.”
• dissent into madness (from an LA Times book review)
• throws of passion note: see throws of death)
• …

1. Make the posting interface a form. Blocked: need to upgrade to WP1.5-final first.
2. Upgrade to WP 1.5-final. Blocked: needs to come out first, and wait for novelty of the site to wear off before exposing visitors to one in the middle of an upgrade.
3. Check the compatibility of the mark-up and CSS with Internet Explorer (this browser is really a pain to design for); decide on how far you will go to accommodate IE. Seems to work grosso modo//.
4. Implement a “changelog” category that is not visible in the eggcorn list but part of the RSS feed, and document all changes there.
5. Fix the bug that makes author name changewhen entry edited by different autor. (Well, it’s a feature. Workaround: save “original author” in custom field and supply “entered by” and “last edited by” for every entry.) Blocked: needs some coding – high concentration required; not good at that atm.
6. Fix comments feed per entry. Seems to be a WP alpha-versioin bug. Solution: Upgrade WP.
7. Better categorization. Needs thought, and input from learned linguists.
8. Finish entering the known eggcorns, in particular commenter-supplied ones.
9. Find out and repair what the XXX is wrong with the comments feed.