Eggcorns

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Will Hunt

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 16, 2006
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Eggcorn. Noun. In linguistics, an eggcorn is an idiosyncratic substitution of a word or phrase for a word or words that sound similar or identical in the speaker's dialect.

My favourites so far:

Don't take it for granite.

For all intensive purposes.

I was wondering around the crag when...

Well done, son shine.

I can't bare it any more.
 
The BT salesperson yesterday: "You may not be legible."

The internet, all the time: "An absolutely top draw boulder problem."
 
I actually once heard with my own ears a friend accuse somebody of "popcorn kettle black".
 
Great to learn there's a name for this. Couple that spring to mind:
climbing is my favourite past time
dinner's ready, could you lay out the cut-el-ree
it's just part of the course
 
My school friend, "I can't wait for the exams to be over, I need some rest bite" has stuck with me to this day.
 
Steve R said:
Will Hunt said:
I actually once heard with my own ears a friend accuse somebody of "popcorn kettle black".
:clap2: that's going to take some beating

He'd already been in for a ribbing earlier in the evening when, about 2 minutes after a group conversation about oral as performed on the female sex, he looked up and asked, "who on earth is Colonel Lingus".
 
moose said:
Two I've heard or seen on forums more than a few times:
- tow the line
- escape goat / scrape goat

Authocorrect doesn’t help with these...
m
 
Does it include deliberate ones?

Like the classic “Murky buckets”?

Or “Fairy snuff”?

Or do they have to be accidental?

Like my favourite log book entry about the foredeck being dangerous due to “Whore frost”?

Or this, and I swear I took this photo in Piraeus (meant to be Warves):

50209-E9-C-5-C25-4-E2-F-A9-F5-7-BFCE7111358.jpg
 
andy_e said:
My school friend, "I can't wait for the exams to be over, I need some rest bite" has stuck with me to this day.

Funny how these sorts of things stay with you... I still remember one from school age whilst round at a mate's house. We must've asked his mum for a solution to some complex problem to which she declared 'I'm not Ironside you know!'

Also, being a bit slow on the uptake, I only realised after previous posting that eggcorn is presumably itself an eggcorn.
 
cheque said:
Saved for prosperity

Note “Gargo” to the right, too.

This is what happens when you put “I speak seven languages” on your CV...
 
cheque said:
Oldmanmatt said:
cheque said:
Saved for prosperity

Note “Gargo” to the right, too.

This is what happens when you put “I speak seven languages” on your CV...

:shrug:

Right, that didn’t make sense, because I meant to quote my own post not yours Cheque.
I’d left it too long to edit my own and wanted to add the reference to the sketch.
Then, I thought you must have not got the sketch reference, and...
 
"pacifically"

"that was a galliant effort"

And after a particley impressive bit of climbing:

"that was absolutely superfluous!"
 
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