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Towards a definition for the category
“Eggcorn”
David TuggyILV-Mexico
Pat SchweitermanModerator: The Eggcorn Forum (http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/forum)
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Eggcorns “Eggcorns” introduced on Language
Log 2003. In 2010 the OED accepted the term An Internet-enabled phenomenon: easy
to check for occurrences of a suspected case and to share them with other enthusiasts (eggcornistas) Language Log The Eggcorn Database (incl Forum) Language columnists etc.
Thousands collected. E.g.:
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Eggcorns egg corns < acorns voiceterous < boisterous dayview < debut star-craving mad < stark raving mad deformation of character < defamation
… scissorian section < Caesarian section
(a.k.a. sea section) little petty-Annie complaints < penny-
ante in Lehmann’s terms < in layman’s
terms pawnsie scheme < Ponzi scheme That’s gonna cost you a nominal egg <
an arm & a leg
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Eggcorns Shared characteristics of these
examples (surprisingly complex): (a) Ǝ an acorn: a widely accepted
(“correct”) standard structure which the perpetrator could reasonably be expected to wish to evoke, and which in any case is evoked in the mind of the analyst. E.g. acorns, stark raving mad, an arm and a
leg, etc.
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Eggcorns (b) The perpetrator uses a
signal/signifiant (spoken/written) which evokes, for both perpetrator and analyst, a semantic structure strikingly different from that of the acorn. E.g. the images of an egg and of corn(s) are
evoked by eggcorns but not particularly by acorns.
The analyst sees this as an obvious restructuring of the acorn that restructured word or phrase is the
eggcorn.
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Eggcorns (c) The analyst understands the
eggcorn to be an error on the part of the perpetrator.
(d) As implied by (a) and (b), the signifiants of the acorn and the eggcorn are different enough to make it clear that the perpetrator has the eggcorn rather than the acorn in mind.
(e) Nevertheless, the signifiants of the acorn and eggcorn are very similar. They are likely to be difficult to distinguish
on many occasions of use. e.g. [ˈɛgkoɹn] / [ˈeʲgkoɹn] and [ˈeʲkoɹn]
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Eggcorns (f) The restructuring makes sense.
An acorn is indeed egg-shaped and corn-like. This restructuring is likely
to make good-enoughsense to communicate in any context where the word acorn would be used.
(Boston Globe stock photo)
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Eggcorns [(e) + (f) =] (g) The eggcorn and the
acorn are largely interchangeable. The eggcorn is so similar to the acorn, both in its signifiant or signal and in its overall meaning, that (i) the perpetrator can use it without the
audience (of potential analysts) realizing that the acorn is not being used.
(ii) others can use the acorn without the perpetrator realizing it is not the eggcorn.
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Eggcorns Prototypically true and typically
judged relevant: (h) The perpetrator is unaware
that the acorn is standard and that most speakers would use it in this context.
(i) The perpetrator believes that the eggcorn is standard and is unaware of having committed an error.
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Eggcorns In the perpetrator’s mind:
Ǝ the Saussurean symbol eggcorn.
seed of oak tree
ˈɛg koɹn
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Eggcorns In the perpetrator’s mind:
Ǝ the Saussurean symbol eggcorn. It is “composed of” (= sanctioned by)
egg and corn.
seed of oak tree
ˈɛg koɹn
grows on plant
seed
eaten usu.
cooked
etc.can grow into plant
koɹn
esp. maize plant
laid by bird
has white, yolk
eaten cooked etc.
can hatch into chick
ɛg
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Eggcorns In the perpetrator’s mind:
Ǝ the Saussurean symbol eggcorn. It is “composed of” (= sanctioned by)
egg and corn. This whole
structure isestablishedas standard.
seed of oak tree
ˈɛg koɹn
grows on plant
seed
eaten usu.
cooked
etc.can grow into plant
koɹn
esp. maize plant
laid by bird
has white, yolk
eaten cooked etc.
can hatch into chick
ɛg
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Eggcorns The analyst is aware of all of this as
well (though it is not standard for him/her).
seed of oak tree
ˈɛg koɹn
grows on plant
seed
eaten usu.
cooked
etc.can grow into plant
koɹn
esp. maize plant
laid by bird
has white, yolk
eaten cooked etc.
can hatch into chick
ɛg
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Eggcorns But the analyst also has strongly
entrenched the symbol acorn
seed of oak tree
ˈɛg koɹn
grows on plant
seed
eaten usu.
cooked
etc.can grow into plant
koɹn
esp. maize plant
laid by bird
has white, yolk
eaten cooked etc.
can hatch into chick
ɛgseed of oak tree
ˈɛj koɹn
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Eggcorns Also the analyst is very aware of the
discrepancies between this standard structure (acorn) and the perpetrator’s standard (eggcorn).
seed of oak tree
ˈɛg koɹn
grows on plant
seed
eaten usu.
cooked
etc.can grow into plant
koɹn
esp. maize plant
laid by bird
has white, yolk
eaten cooked etc.
can hatch into chick
ɛgseed of oak tree
ˈɛj koɹn
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Eggcorns The designata (profiled meanings)
are very close; but the phonological structures differ
seed of oak tree
ˈɛg koɹn
grows on plant
seed
eaten usu.
cooked
etc.can grow into plant
koɹn
esp. maize plant
laid by bird
has white, yolk
eaten cooked etc.
can hatch into chick
ɛgseed of oak tree
ˈɛj koɹn
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Eggcorns Overall, then, the eggcorn is seen by
the analyst as a distortion of the acorn.
seed of oak tree
ˈɛg koɹn
grows on plant
seed
eaten usu.
cooked
etc.can grow into plant
koɹn
esp. maize plant
laid by bird
has white, yolk
eaten cooked etc.
can hatch into chick
ɛgseed of oak tree
ˈɛj koɹn
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Eggcorns (An abbreviated way to diagram the
same thing.)
seed of oak tree
ˈɛg koɹn
grows on plant
seed
eaten usu.
cooked
etc.can grow into plant
koɹn
esp. maize plant
seed of oak tree
ˈɛj koɹn
laid by bird
has white, yolk
eaten cooked etc.
can hatch into chick
ɛg
seed of oak tree
ˈɛj koɹn
seed of oak tree
ˈɛg koɹn
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Eggcorns Showing “features” as schemas:
ˈɛˌkoɹn ˈɛgkoɹn
STRUCTURE ESTABLISHED FOR ANALYST
STRUCTURE ESTABLISHED FOR
PERPETRATOR
STRUCTURE ESTABLISHED FOR LANGUAGE USERS
GENERALLY
RELATIONSHIP OF STRIKING SIMILARITY
YET DIFFERENCE
COHERENT STRUCTURE
(i.e. it makes sense)
STRUCTURE UNKNOWN TO PERPETRATOR
(a)
(a)
STRUCTURE PERCEIVED BY
ANALYST
(b)(c) (b)
(d) (e) PAIR OF STRUCTURES INTERCHANGEABLE IN
MOST CONTEXTS without causing major
communication breakdown
STRUCTURE PERCEIVED BY
ANALYST AS ERRONEOUS
(c)(i)
(f)
(g)
(h)
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Eggcorns Abstracting to get linguistic terms:
Y Yˊ
STRUCTURE ESTABLISHED FOR ANALYST
STRUCTURE ESTABLISHED FOR
PERPETRATOR
STRUCTURE ESTABLISHED FOR LANGUAGE USERS
GENERALLY
RELATIONSHIP OF STRIKING SIMILARITY
YET DIFFERENCE
COHERENT STRUCTURE
(i.e. it makes sense)
STRUCTURE UNKNOWN TO
PERPETRATOR
(a)
(a)
STRUCTURE PERCEIVED BY
ANALYST
(b)(c) (b)
(d) (e) PAIR OF STRUCTURES INTERCHANGEABLE IN
MOST CONTEXTS without causing major
communication breakdown
STRUCTURE PERCEIVED BY
ANALYST AS ERRONEOUS
(c)(i)
(f)
(g)
(h)
X Xˊ
ˈɛgkoɹn
ˈɛˌkoɹn ˈɛgkoɹn
STRUCTURE ESTABLISHED FOR ANALYST
STRUCTURE ESTABLISHED FOR
PERPETRATOR
STRUCTURE ESTABLISHED FOR LANGUAGE USERS
GENERALLY
RELATIONSHIP OF STRIKING SIMILARITY
YET DIFFERENCE
COHERENT STRUCTURE
(i.e. it makes sense)
STRUCTURE UNKNOWN TO
PERPETRATOR
(a)
(a)
STRUCTURE PERCEIVED BY
ANALYST
(b)(c) (b)
(d) (e) PAIR OF STRUCTURES INTERCHANGEABLE IN
MOST CONTEXTS without causing major
communication breakdown
STRUCTURE PERCEIVED BY
ANALYST AS ERRONEOUS
(c)(i)
(f)
(g)
(h)
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Eggcorns and other categories
Eggcorns are usefully compared and contrasted with a number of more-traditional linguistic categories.
Probably the closest one is the category of folk-etymologies.
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Eggcorns and other categories
In a “folk etymology” There once was a standard structure,
the analog of the acorn [(a)], which perpetrators changed into a
similar-sounding structure [(d), (e)] which evokes rather different imagery
[(b)] in order to achieve a similar, functionally
substitutable overall meaning [(g)]. The restructuring must make some kind
of sense [(f)] for this to work very well.
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Eggcorns and other categories
In a “folk etymology” For an analyst for whom the original
structure is standard, this is an error [(c)]
for the perpetrators it is quite standard [(g), (h), (i)],
But in a folk etymology the eggcorn has been so successful as to replace the acorn; thus (a) is no longer fully realized. (e.g. shamefaced, *sham(e)fast)
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Eggcorns and other categories
An eggcorn is an incipient, not-yet-fully-successful
folk etymology.
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Eggcorns and other categories
A “mondegreen” is a reanalysis caused by mishearing (and ignorance).
E.g. “they hae slain the Earl O’Murray and Lady Mondegreen” = and laid him on the green.
The “wild, strange, battlecry of the Light Brigade”:
Haffely, Gaffely!Gaffely, Gonward!
= Half a league, half a league, half a league onward!
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Eggcorns and other categories
Most eggcorns are mondegrenous in their origin.
But most mondegreens are not eggcornical.
Most mondegreens occur only in one very specific context (e.g. only in the poem about the Light Brigade)
Most mondegreens do not make good sense even in their original context. Surely good Mrs. Murphy < Surely
goodness and mercy makes no sense in Ps. 23.
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Eggcorns and other categories
A mondegreen that is standard for its user, makes sense, and is adaptable to
many contexts, is an eggcorn.
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Eggcorns and other categories
A malapropism is “using the wrong word”.
Typically the perp means the right word, just doesn’t realize how it’s pronounced.
Mrs. Malaprop thought allegory meant She didn’t mean
allegory at all. The eggcorn
lady did mean egg and corn.
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Eggcorns and other categories
This is not restructuring. It also does not make sense, if it is taken
seriously: Allegories do not fit even as well as alligators along the banks of the Nile.
Yet eggcorns are, loosely defined, a sub-class of malapropisms.
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Eggcorns and other categories
An eggcorn is a malapropism that makes sense
(and which the perpetrator uses because of that sense).
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Eggcorns and other categories
An eggcorn that the perpetrator is aware of and uses on purpose is a kind of pun.An eggcorn is an inadvertent
yet standard-for-the-user pun
that makes good sense in many contexts.
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The OED definition “An alteration of a word or phrase
through the mishearing or reinterpretation of one or more of its elements as a similar-sounding word.”
This fails to distinguish eggcorns from other categories. All mondegreens, and possibly all malapropisms, many puns and other examples of wordplay, would be subclasses of eggcorns.
It’s the other way around!
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The OED definition Perhaps instead: “A restructuring, erroneously
considered standard by its user, of a word or phrase [through the mishearing or misinterpretation of one or more of its elements as a similar-sounding word or element], such that the restructured word or phrase makes good sense in most contexts of usage.”
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(some more examples the aftermass of the storm <
aftermath another words < in other words in any weight shape or form < way
shape or form cute as I’ll get out < as all get-out learning by wrote < learning by rote wile away the time < while away the
time you’ve got another thing coming <
another think Wholly crap! have you seen … <
Holy crap! do your upmost < do your utmost
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Powerpoint to be available at
www.sil.org/~tuggyd