An “eggcorn” is born
Cats: eggcorns|Pop quiz: What is an eggcorn? A misspelling? Or a word that defines the way our language evolves. Well, if you said both, you’d be right.
Eggcorn is indeed a mispelling of acorn, the thing that falls off a tree. Over the years, it has been misheard, mistaken and misspelled as eggcorn.
But is this so wrong? Well, no, according to the linguistic folks at the Language Log, a favourite site of this typist. If you think about it, an acorn is shaped like an egg. Corn is can be thought of as a kernel or seed, like an acorn. Thus an eggcorn is born. It’s a mistake but a mistake that makes sense, unlike a malapropism which is just a wrong word that sounds similar.
Eggcorn has been codified as a term that describes mistaken words that make sense. When enough people start using these words, they enter language as folk etymology. Some etymologists believe that acorn is actually an eggcorn. The middle English word was acern. Who knows.
Here are a few more eggcorns. Follow the links to the eggcorn data base for usage examples.
Coldslaw - coleslaw
Gameful employment - gainful employment
Get one’s dandruff up - get one’s dander up
Buy one’s time - bide one’s time
Cadillac converter - catalytic converter
Eggcorns will be a regular feature on GT. Anyone with any other examples?
April 14th, 2007 at 4:05 pm
The movie “Blades of Glory” introduced me to “mind bottling” as a replacement for “mind boggling”
April 16th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
Another of my own invention is House bum = husband. I like to think that “house bum” is the origin of the term husband.
April 16th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
House Bum, that’s good h&p.
Perhaps you should submit it to the Acorn index.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:51 am
Duct tape has become duck tape, there’s even a brand name now actually called “Duck Tape”.
I had occasion to be in a courtroom a few years ago when the witness on the stand was explaining what happened leading up to a robbery in a small rural community. He said, “It was two, tree miles down the road, I can’t be too pacific but somewhere in that virginity”. Court had to recess for five minutes to allow staff to compose themselves, go figure.
April 17th, 2007 at 6:04 am
It should be duck tape as far as I’m concerned. I always go out of my way in the hardware store to pronounce daa-ka-ttt tape just to make the point that it is impossible to pronounce properly without sounding stupid.
Thanks also for that brilliant piece of malapropism. I’m thinking about starting a series on that as well.
April 28th, 2007 at 10:00 am
[…] is another crop of eggcorns from the Eggcorn Database. Remember the eggcorn from a previous post? They are the fun little mistakes that actually work. In fact some like […]