Re: eggcorn (was Re: "To whom")

Philip Newton wrote:

> On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 00:21:38 -0800, Arthaey Angosii <arthaey@...>
> wrote:
> > >
> > > What's an eggcorn?
> >
> > http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000018.html
>
> Thanks... though I'm still not quite sure what the term refers to. A
> mis-hearing of a word which results in a non-standard spelling? A
> single instance of might otherwise be termed "folk etymology"?
>
Maybe the best term would be "nonce-form (folk etym. dept.)" :-)) that seems
to make its way at least once into written language. As someone pointed out
in the discussion, a dialectal pronunc. of egg as [ejg] could lead to the
wrong division of ['ejkor\n].

I don't know whether to thank Arthaey, or not, for that URL...I spent almost
an hour looking thru it..........:-))

Reply