Eggcorns

[tberton]

Is anybody familiar with my favourite weird linguistic thing, Eggcorns? They're mispellings or  mispronunciations of words or phrases that result in a new word that has a similar implied meaning to the original. The best example is the original: a newspaper writer saw somebody write "egg corn" instead of "acorn" and realized that acorns kind of do look like eggs, so why wouldn't that be a good name?

 

Here are some of my favourites:

 

"Old timer's disease": an eggcorn for "Alzheimer's disease". It's a disease that primarily affects the elderly, so it's easy to see why someone would hear that.

 

"Waiting on tenderhooks": the actual term is "tenterhooks" which were hooks that were used to stretch out cloth. But nobody's ever heard of those, and tenderhooks sounds so much more evocative of painful anticipation.

 

"Chomping at the bit": I suspect a lot of people don't know about this one, which makes sense, since apparently "chomp" comes from "champ," which is what a horse does to its bit when impatient.

 

"Scald": instead of "scold." This might be particular to me, but when I was younger, I always got the words confused. You're angry with someone, which burns them. Makes sense to me.

 

Let's discuss these wonderful words and turns of phrase and see if we can add our own. Don't just make them up, try to make them things you've actually heard or said.

[dibs]

My friend once sent me some illicit exam question solutions with the warning "use them at your pearl". How he knew i was staying the evening in my giant oyster shell i will never know.

[N1njaSquirrel]

My favourite ever Podcast show, The incredible Adam and Joe on 6 Music had a whole segment on this:

 

 

For me, until about 3 years ago, I thought that it was 'Mutton dressed as ham' instead of 'Mutton dressed as lamb'. I used to say it all the time too. Boy did I have ham on my face when I found out!

[Badfinger]

I didn't know these had a name! @FanSince09 mostly complains about Philadelphia sports on Twitter, but he also routinely searches and retweets horrible mangled common phrases. I wish I could remember some of those gems. I'll post them as they filter into my brain. I'll be honest he's probably not worth a follow if you're not a sports person but that's where I see most of those pop up.

[tberton]

My favourite ever Podcast show, The incredible Adam and Joe on 6 Music had a whole segment on this:

 

 

For me, until about 3 years ago, I thought that it was 'Mutton dressed as ham' instead of 'Mutton dressed as lamb'. I used to say it all the time too. Boy did I have ham on my face when I found out!

 

This is awesome! The wonderful thing is, that since a lot of these are English sayings, they make no sense to me anyway! "Arguing pedantics" is particularly great.

[Ben X]

That's a terrifyingly airbrushed pic of A&J.

 

Don't know if this was on that clip, but a classic is "went off like a damp squid", rather than squib. Taking "damp" to imply that the squid is recently out of water, it presumably would be about as impressive as a damp squib.

[tberton]

I like that one. This was mentioned on that clip, but "it's a doggie dog world" is a pretty great one too.

[Merus]

I'm reasonably sure 'if you think that, you've got another thing coming' is an eggcorn; the original phrasing was that you've got another think coming, but that's kind of awkward to actually say.

[Apple Cider]

Is this what is happening when people say it's a "mute point"?

[SecretAsianMan]

Is this what is happening when people say it's a "mute point"?

 

If they mean "moot point" then yes.

[N1njaSquirrel]

I think I just coined an Eggcorn whilst talking to my colleagues just now "If you want to hide a tree, put it in a forest". Is this already a thing? I'm not sure about anything anymore.

[BobbyBesar]

Not directly related, but it may be of interest to people in this thread, so I'll just leave this here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondegreen

[N1njaSquirrel]

Not directly related, but it may be of interest to people in this thread, so I'll just leave this here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondegreen

 

This is the one that I know:

[Mangela Lansbury]

One of my favorite blogs has a whole bunch of these, like firstable for first of all

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?cat=49

[jeremywc]

I've always loved my son's mispronunciation of dinosaurs as dinorawrs / dinoroars. Seems appropriate.

 

Also, I'm told one of my uncles used to pronounce gravity as "grabity". You know, because it grabs on and pulls you back down.

[James]

My German teacher at school had a story about getting a note from a child's mother explaining his prior absence was due to "dire rear". I imagine that's a fairly common one.

[Ninety-Three]

This isn't quite an eggcorn, but it seems on topic. For about two decades, I thought the Queen Elizabeth Parkway (a major highway near where I live) wasn't actually named that, and "Parkway" was just what people angrily called it because using it is like being parked.

[Problem Machine]

If they mean "moot point" then yes.

And most people misuse, or I guess at this point redefine, the word moot anyway. It originally meant a point of contention, but is now used to mean that it's irrelevant whether it's true or not, a meaning almost contradictory to its original use.

Yes I learned that from QI. Wanna fight about it?

[feelthedarkness]

For all intensive purposes is there a difference between champ and chomp? 

[tberton]

I see what you did there.

[dibs]

Email from boss over weekend:

 

We conducted an investigation immediately into the route cause

[miffy495]

Man, this thread is just a giant list of things that are going to go into the back of my mind and pulled out later to become horrible puns of some sort. Thanks!

[osmosisch]

[SecretAsianMan]

Those made me cringe, especially the second one.

[tberton]

Hmmm, those are pretty good, but the first two are more Mondegreens than Eggcorns, I think, because they're just nonsense rather than being interesting new spins on the same meaning. The last one is just complete gibberish. Still pretty good though. I kind of want a superhero named Alter Eagle.