John Crowley's LJ (RSS Feed)
07-03-2008, 01:39 AM
Well I'm so proud.
Following a link that http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif (http://fluxbox.livejournal.com/profile)fluxbox (http://fluxbox.livejournal.com/) sugested -- http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/ -- I found out that my little handful of spellcheck oddities is nothing compared to what can be found on line, and not only that but they have a name -- or rather a particular form of spelling/homonym misdirection (of which most of these things I collected are a subset) has a name: Eggcorns. As the name (when once you think about it) suggests, it means misheard-then-repeated or somehow misunderstood words or phrases that (as a Friend here notes) pick up other words or bits of words that seem to the speaker or writer to belong there. LIke "in the throws of love" which a commentator to the last entry sees nothing wrong with -- like flinging yourself around in the bed and getting tangled in the coverlet. The true Eggcorn does this -- alters the phrase in a way that seems to the speaker to make good sense and mean what they mean. Follow the link and find hundreds of them, many wonderful with a kind of unconscious Joycean wit. Another sort is distinguished as "demi-eggcorns" -- like "tip-towed" and "didn't phase me" -- where the sound is confusing but the meaning is not enhanced or supplemented inthe new formulation.
SO I registered, and got to submit my own -- the one they didn't seem to have -- the last one on my list, ,which I had just found, actually, in a website that http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif (http://rozk.livejournal.com/profile)rozk (http://rozk.livejournal.com/) linked to, where a biologist is reported refuting the asinine objections to his E. coli research by a creationist (Phyllis Schlafly's son, in point of fact -- the emails are actually wonderful: http://www.badscience.net/2008/06/all-t … st-pwnage/ (http://www.badscience.net/2008/06/all-time-classic-creationist-pwnage/) ). He said his research had been "pain-staking". I don;t know if that's just a typo, but it seemed to fit the bill, an I submitted it, and got a complement from the Webmaster for a unique find -- it is being archived.
What I wonder is whether -- like so many other things in other areas of life -- the digital revolution is revealing things that have always been there unnoticed. Many many of these "eggcorns" are common on blogs or other chat situations, many are used by many writers. They aren't errors, they are what a "community of speakers" (now writers) always thought they were saying, and now that can be seen. A little bit like the way prenatal ultrasound has revealed that far more twins are conceived than we ever knew, because one foetus is very frequently simply reabsorbed. Those ghost twins were never known about before.
(Original Post) (http://crowleycrow.livejournal.com/92178.html)
Following a link that http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif (http://fluxbox.livejournal.com/profile)fluxbox (http://fluxbox.livejournal.com/) sugested -- http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/ -- I found out that my little handful of spellcheck oddities is nothing compared to what can be found on line, and not only that but they have a name -- or rather a particular form of spelling/homonym misdirection (of which most of these things I collected are a subset) has a name: Eggcorns. As the name (when once you think about it) suggests, it means misheard-then-repeated or somehow misunderstood words or phrases that (as a Friend here notes) pick up other words or bits of words that seem to the speaker or writer to belong there. LIke "in the throws of love" which a commentator to the last entry sees nothing wrong with -- like flinging yourself around in the bed and getting tangled in the coverlet. The true Eggcorn does this -- alters the phrase in a way that seems to the speaker to make good sense and mean what they mean. Follow the link and find hundreds of them, many wonderful with a kind of unconscious Joycean wit. Another sort is distinguished as "demi-eggcorns" -- like "tip-towed" and "didn't phase me" -- where the sound is confusing but the meaning is not enhanced or supplemented inthe new formulation.
SO I registered, and got to submit my own -- the one they didn't seem to have -- the last one on my list, ,which I had just found, actually, in a website that http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif (http://rozk.livejournal.com/profile)rozk (http://rozk.livejournal.com/) linked to, where a biologist is reported refuting the asinine objections to his E. coli research by a creationist (Phyllis Schlafly's son, in point of fact -- the emails are actually wonderful: http://www.badscience.net/2008/06/all-t … st-pwnage/ (http://www.badscience.net/2008/06/all-time-classic-creationist-pwnage/) ). He said his research had been "pain-staking". I don;t know if that's just a typo, but it seemed to fit the bill, an I submitted it, and got a complement from the Webmaster for a unique find -- it is being archived.
What I wonder is whether -- like so many other things in other areas of life -- the digital revolution is revealing things that have always been there unnoticed. Many many of these "eggcorns" are common on blogs or other chat situations, many are used by many writers. They aren't errors, they are what a "community of speakers" (now writers) always thought they were saying, and now that can be seen. A little bit like the way prenatal ultrasound has revealed that far more twins are conceived than we ever knew, because one foetus is very frequently simply reabsorbed. Those ghost twins were never known about before.
(Original Post) (http://crowleycrow.livejournal.com/92178.html)