Take this with a grain assault
February 24, 2005 12:08 PM   Subscribe

The Eggcorn Database. A previous post noted the lack of a "proper repository" for examples of these bemusing, off-repeated folk etymologies. Until now, finding the latest news in eggcorns has merely been a French benefit of pouring over the new posts at LanguageLog. The Eggcorn Database puts them all at your beckoned call. Another words, the days of getting balked down in other stupid ideas while looking for the latest finds are over. The Eggcorn Database already catalogs over 100 examples, replete with antidotal usages and collaborating evidence for eggcorn status. An overview for the lame man is here.
posted by casu marzu (15 comments total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
I don't want to come to lagerheads with anyone, but this post will doubtless provoke conjunctive heart failure in a few prescriptivist pedants -- the pre-madonnas always partitioning against the poor usage of the rebel in MetaTalk.
posted by casu marzu at 12:09 PM on February 24, 2005 [1 favorite]


I love stuff like this. Unfortunately, the explosion of "get the message out fast first, correct if possible" internet communication is making them more and more the norm instead of the exception.

Television close-captioning should be a category all by itself. I remember a few years back when Canadian pianist Glenn Gould left us to join the Choir Invisible. I was in a sports bar and watched as the overhead close-captioned TV image reported on the passing of Canada's "pee-and-owe" virtuoso.

And of course, on a related subject, if you haven't already heard of them, mis-heard song lyrics -- or "mondegreens" ("I see the bathroom on the right") -- and misplaced consonants -- or "spoonerisms" ("And now a toast to our queer old dean") -- are similar and are themselves the subject of numerous websites.
posted by Mike D at 12:21 PM on February 24, 2005


Eggcorns drive me insaaaaaane, especially when I see them in publications I respect. The whole site is great, but sets my teeth on edge.
posted by Specklet at 12:29 PM on February 24, 2005


I like the fact they actually document occurences of these things. The various mondegreen repositories on the web are full of stuff that I suspect people just invented to be funny.

"Great site, but it sets my teeth on edge" sums up my feelings exactly. Good work on the clever FPP.
posted by Wolfdog at 12:35 PM on February 24, 2005


It took two tries and a serious amount of effort to understand what the hell that first paragraph said. It wasn't like "teh" or "your's", where you understand but see it as wrong; it was like a bizarro McGraw post of random phrases.

Apparently these types of errors are harder for me to parse than spelling mistakes.
posted by Bugbread at 12:56 PM on February 24, 2005


well done, casu marzu!
posted by shoepal at 12:58 PM on February 24, 2005


eye dew know no watts rung with ewe peephole. personally, i believe the end of the whorled is coming because of AIMspeak - LOL ROTFLOL IAMMV (okay, the last one's mine--inane acronyms make me vomit). then again, i don't use capital letters much when i type, which is just laziness manifested into habit. ...and somewhere lives a person who thinks that has to do with capitalism.
posted by basis4insanity at 1:13 PM on February 24, 2005


It's a moo point. You know, like a cow's opinion. It's moo.

-- Joey, Friends

This phrase is repeated throughout my house for hours after this episode airs in repeats. I beat my kids until they're deaf, but they can't stop repeating it and laughing again and again.
posted by thanotopsis at 1:18 PM on February 24, 2005


Basis4insanity, that iz teh end v da whorled 4 idiots, butt these r da prblms of the non-idioteg rglr peeple. I can't c my boss using AIMspeak, butt I can c him saying "works like a champ" or "locust of control".
posted by Bugbread at 1:21 PM on February 24, 2005


I beat my kids until they're deaf, but they can't stop repeating it and laughing again and again.

You're beating them wrong. You don't need to beat them till they're deaf, but until they're mute.
posted by Bugbread at 1:22 PM on February 24, 2005


Quit bitching, all you whiners. Don't you understand, it's a doggie-dog world? And sometimes you just gotta tow the line.
posted by Turtles all the way down at 2:26 PM on February 24, 2005


If you think I'm going to get into this whole topic again, you've got another thing coming.
posted by soyjoy at 2:48 PM on February 24, 2005


I had never heard the eggcorn term before, but it seems an apropos way to group all these annoying malapropisms together.

I think the prevalence of these phrases can be linked back to our culture's post-literate tendencies. If you hear the term corroborating evidence on CSI or in casual conversation, you're a lot more likely to get it wrong than if you come across it even once written out.

I think it's worth pointing out that America's most misunderestimated man is a fantastic source for new coinages in the eggcorn vein.
posted by killdevil at 2:49 PM on February 24, 2005


That's a fun link.

Some of these seem a bit lame, though. I mean 'pouring' is not a weird error - it's just a mispelling. It ranks right up their with they're v. their v. there.
posted by jacquilynne at 2:57 PM on February 24, 2005


More constructive.
posted by nj_subgenius at 7:15 PM on February 24, 2005


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