| Author |
Message |
John Holmes
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2005 4:24 am
Post subject: Re: The Eggcornin' Bob Dylan |
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Chris Waigl wrote:
| Quote: | On Fri, 04 Nov 2005 10:19:01 -0800, jerry_friedman@yahoo.com wrote:
I'd call it non-standard; I wouldn't expect to see it in the _New
York Times_ (although these days...). But, as you and many others
say, unremarkable anywhere in the U.S. I've ever been.
Oops: 76 GHits for "step | stepped | steps | stepping foot" in the
guardian.co.uk domain: <http://shorl.com/gehusonigoky>.
Ben, do we need an addendum or so? Is it dialectal? Or just becoming
mainstream faster than we were thinking?
|
Try a search on "step | stepped | steps | stepping foot forward". That
brings up pages about dance and execise instructions, which might be a
clue to the validity of transitive 'step'. It doesn't show any
regionalism that I could see.
--
Regards
John
for mail: my initials plus a u e
at tpg dot com dot au |
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Harvey Van Sickle
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2005 5:16 am
Post subject: Define "eggcorn", please (was Re: The Eggcornin' Bob Dylan) |
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On 04 Nov 2005, Ross Howard wrote
| Quote: | On Fri, 04 Nov 2005 08:26:56 GMT, "mUs1Ka"
mUs1Ka@NOSPAMexcite.com> wrought:
Harvey Van Sickle wrote:
On 04 Nov 2005, Ross Howard wrote
"Stepped foot in"? I checked with the Eggcorn Database and,
yes, there it is (entered by Ben Zimmer).
"Never stepped foot in there again" sounds entirely
idiomatic to me -- regional, but I can't see which word has
replaced a correct one.
I would say thet the idiomatic phrase would be, "Never set
foot in there again".
Yes, and Google agrees (with a general Google ratio of about
15:1).
You can certainly see where this classic eggcorn came from. I
say classic, because it pleasingly manages to make a bit more
sense than the original version that it mangles -- we do
indeed step into places with our feet, whereas we seldom if
ever "set" them anywhere. But an eggcorn it is; "step" isn't
transitively in this way anywhere else, is it?
|
"Classic eggcorn"? I object, y'eronner.
"Stepped foot" simply does not have the same relation to "set foot"
as, say, "sheik" has to "chic" -- one which I happened to spy on
the "database". (The quotation marks are intentional: that ain't
a database, it's just a searchable list.)
The term "eggcorn" appears to mean whatever people want it mean.
Thanks; I'll take a look. (As you can tell, though, I'm not sold
on this catch-all term of "eggcorn": it looks like so broad a
category as to be meaningless.)
--
Cheers, Harvey
Canadian (30 years) and British (23 years)
For e-mail, change harvey.news to harvey.van |
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Chris Waigl
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2005 6:51 am
Post subject: Re: Define "eggcorn", please (was Re: The Eggcornin' Bob Dyl |
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On Fri, 04 Nov 2005 22:16:40 +0000, Harvey Van Sickle wrote:
| Quote: | On 04 Nov 2005, Ross Howard wrote
You can certainly see where this classic eggcorn came from. I say
classic, because it pleasingly manages to make a bit more sense than
the original version that it mangles -- we do indeed step into places
with our feet, whereas we seldom if ever "set" them anywhere. But an
eggcorn it is; "step" isn't transitively in this way anywhere else, is
it?
"Classic eggcorn"? I object, y'eronner.
|
I agree that "classic eggcorn" is a bit of a high-falutin' word to use the
way things stand. But the situation isn't half as vague as you are making
it out to be. (And is this supposed to be French?)
| Quote: | "Stepped foot" simply does not have the same relation to "set foot" as,
say, "sheik" has to "chic" -- one which I happened to spy on the
"database". (The quotation marks are intentional: that ain't a
database, it's just a searchable list.)
|
First of all it is, strictly speaking, a database. I'll gladly send you a
gzipped/b2zipped/zipped version of the .sql export. Admittedly, I haven't
got around to providing a more austere interface for the technologically
inclined, or even renamed the tables in a more fitting way. It _is_ a
work-in-progress.
Second, your analogy is askew. The following is still not perfect, but
better: _chic_ is to _sheik_ in "a very sheik venue" like _set_ to _step_
in "(I) never stepped foot in there again". I'd be inclined to re-title
the "step foot" entry as "step" simply. But it remains true that some
eggcorns are part of idioms or fixed expressions ("step foot") and others
aren't ("a sheik venue"). No, the site isn't consistent, and I've been
struggling to find a label for those that are part of idioms. "Idiomatic"
isn't it.
Third, yes, there is quite a bit of vagueness around the contours. We keep
finding entirely new types of eggcorns, with something we hadn't
considered before being reanalysed. Maybe a morpheme. Or the pronunciation
being changed when the spelling isn't. Many, many of the (a bit
overwhelmingly numerous) submissions are just amusing malapropisms, but
things get tricky if they just might be a little more than that. For most
entries, the best one can say is that the substitution is an eggcorn (i.e.
driven by the desire to make sense of an opaque bit of language) for some
writers, and for others it may just be insensitivity to how things are
spelled. This gets particularly hairy for examples that coincide with
frequent typos (an inversion of letters, or a dropped letter, say).
Still, the "About" page and the Language Log posts referenced therein, in
particular Arnold Zwicky's "Lady Mondegreen says her peace about egg
corns"
<http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/%7Emyl/languagelog/archives/000074.html>, with
its careful classification of reshapings, do provide some pointers to the
elements that come into play for eggcorns as opposed to other kinds of
"lexical errors", or as a particular subset of them.
| Quote: | The term "eggcorn" appears to mean whatever people want it mean.
|
Is it too much asked to read the available reference material before
stating that the entire thing is too ill-defined to be useful?
| Quote: | Thanks; I'll take a look. (As you can tell, though, I'm not sold on
this catch-all term of "eggcorn": it looks like so broad a category as
to be meaningless.)
|
Well, I'm not trying to sell the term to anyone. But I'm not only (or even
mainly) in for the amusement value.
Chris Waigl
--
blog: http://serendipity.lascribe.net/
eggcorns: http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/ |
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Robert Bannister
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2005 8:07 am
Post subject: Re: The Eggcornin' Bob Dylan |
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Harvey Van Sickle wrote:
| Quote: | On 04 Nov 2005, Ross Howard wrote
I've just started to read *Chronicles*, Bob Dylan's
autobiography, and -- apart from some annoyingly lax
copy-editing -- it's a great read.
I did come across this, though.
I had stopped going down to the Café Wha? in the
afternoons. Never stepped foot in there again.
"Stepped foot in"? I checked with the Eggcorn Database and,
yes, there it is (entered by Ben Zimmer).
"Never stepped foot in there again" sounds entirely idiomatic to me
-- regional, but I can't see which word has replaced a correct one.
So which word is the eggcorned one? (I couldn't find it in the
Eggcorn Database under "stepped", "foot", or "stepped foot in".)
"Step" is not usually transitive, except in expressions to do with |
dancing or possibly construction. You place your foot somewhere, ie
"set" it. You can also step on someone else's foot.
--
Rob Bannister |
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Charles Riggs
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2005 8:07 am
Post subject: Re: The Eggcornin' Bob Dylan |
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On Sat, 05 Nov 2005 09:15:19 +0800, Robert Bannister
<robban@it.net.au> wrote:
| Quote: | Charles Riggs wrote:
That use of it is somewhat dodgy and, perhaps as you say, TCE, but
saying something such as "I will never step foot in that pub again" is
unremarkable: it is not substandard English.
As Ross says: "interesting". I wouldn't call it substandard, but neither
would I call it "unremarkable". It definitely sends up warning flags to
me and would have to be "set foot" in my various dialects.
|
Looking at it again, Rob, I have to agree. While I have heard "step
foot in" -- perhaps from some cowboy in Jerry's neck of the woods --
"set foot in" is the way I'd say it. It may be not be substandard in
cowboy English, redneck English or TCE, though. There's room for many
dialects.
--
Charles Riggs |
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Robert Bannister
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2005 8:08 am
Post subject: Re: The Eggcornin' Bob Dylan |
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Charles Riggs wrote:
| Quote: | That use of it is somewhat dodgy and, perhaps as you say, TCE, but
saying something such as "I will never step foot in that pub again" is
unremarkable: it is not substandard English.
As Ross says: "interesting". I wouldn't call it substandard, but neither |
would I call it "unremarkable". It definitely sends up warning flags to
me and would have to be "set foot" in my various dialects.
--
Rob Bannister |
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Ross Howard
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2005 4:36 pm
Post subject: Re: Define "eggcorn", please (was Re: The Eggcornin' Bob Dyl |
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On Fri, 04 Nov 2005 22:16:40 GMT, Harvey Van Sickle
<harvey.news@ntlworld.com> wrought:
| Quote: | On 04 Nov 2005, Ross Howard wrote
On Fri, 04 Nov 2005 08:26:56 GMT, "mUs1Ka"
mUs1Ka@NOSPAMexcite.com> wrought:
Harvey Van Sickle wrote:
On 04 Nov 2005, Ross Howard wrote
"Stepped foot in"? I checked with the Eggcorn Database and,
yes, there it is (entered by Ben Zimmer).
"Never stepped foot in there again" sounds entirely
idiomatic to me -- regional, but I can't see which word has
replaced a correct one.
[...]
You can certainly see where this classic eggcorn came from. I
say classic, because it pleasingly manages to make a bit more
sense than the original version that it mangles -- we do
indeed step into places with our feet, whereas we seldom if
ever "set" them anywhere. But an eggcorn it is; "step" isn't
transitively in this way anywhere else, is it?
"Classic eggcorn"? I object, y'eronner.
"Stepped foot" simply does not have the same relation to "set foot"
as, say, "sheik" has to "chic" -- one which I happened to spy on
the "database". (The quotation marks are intentional: that ain't
a database, it's just a searchable list.)
The term "eggcorn" appears to mean whatever people want it mean.
[..]
(As you can tell, [...] I'm not sold
on this catch-all term of "eggcorn": it looks like so broad a
category as to be meaningless.)
|
It's defined clearly enough on the "About" page of Chris's site, but
here's my undertanding of the term (correct me, Chris or Ben, if I've
got the wrong end of the shtick):
There are three particular kinds of solecisms in which a soundalike
word or phrase is used instead of the standard one: malaprops,
mondegreens and eggcorns. The difference between them lies not so much
in the nature of the change that the word or phrase undergoes as in
the *reason* why the change was made.
Malaprops result from attempting to use a word that belongs to a
higher register than you are really comfortable with and getting it
hopelessly wrong, using instead another word that you don't really
understand either.. In other words, they stem from biting off more
than you can lexically chew, usually with absurd results:
She talks ever so posh. She's had electrocution lessons, you
know.
Mondegreens are easy to define: they are mis-heard song lyrics, and
may affect not just one word but a whole line. The result may bear
some relation to the original, but it needn't. What it must do,
though, is be composed of a very similar cluster of phonemes.
Now eggcorns. Like mondegreens, they're usually the result of someone
having mis-heard a word or set phrase and getting it -- or, if a
phrase, a key part of it -- wrong. However, they generally have a
strange sort of internal logic, and in many cases they may even make
rather more sense than the original version, at least at first sight.
A good example was mentioned here by Mike Lyle a couple of years ago:
to be "streaks ahead" instead of "streets ahead". It makes sense
because the winners of races do indeed streak ahead of their
competitors, and what are streets supposed to have to do with the
price of fish?
This is why I called "step foot in" a classic eggcorn. (I agree that
"classic" is perhaps not the happiest word I could have used; how
about "canonical", then?) After all, we have "footsteps" so why not
"step foot"? When you think about it, though, an eggcorn it has to be
-- not only should the foot be the subject rather than the object of
"step", but "set" is used to mean place with extremities (as in the
legalese "set my hand" meaning "sign"). "Set foot in" is archaic in
its form, but it's still modern idiomatic English, while step foot in
passes the eggcorn test: it's a soundalike error but it makes a
certain amount of sense
Rather than being meaningless, I find it a useful term for a
phenomenon that is not only of interest here (more on-topic,
impossible) -- it's often a helluva lot of fun.
--
Ross Howard |
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Harvey Van Sickle
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2005 4:43 pm
Post subject: Re: Define "eggcorn", please (was Re: The Eggcornin' Bob Dyl |
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On 04 Nov 2005, Chris Waigl wrote
| Quote: | On Fri, 04 Nov 2005 22:16:40 +0000, Harvey Van Sickle wrote:
re: the use of "stepped" where most others would use "set" |
| Quote: | "Stepped foot" simply does not have the same relation to "set
foot" as, say, "sheik" has to "chic"
|
-snip-
| Quote: | Second, your analogy is askew. The following is still not
perfect, but better: _chic_ is to _sheik_ in "a very sheik
venue" like _set_ to _step_ in "(I) never stepped foot in
there again".
|
That's precisely what I mean by it being too vague: they're only
similar in that a different word is being used to that which is
expected: one's a homonym, whilst the other (I think) is a
difference in idiom.
That two things cause a reader to pause and to say "I think that's
not the right word" doesn't mean that the two things are themselves
similar: it just means that in certain situations, they have the
same effect on a third party.
| Quote: | I'd be inclined to re-title the "step foot"
entry as "step" simply. But it remains true that some eggcorns
are part of idioms or fixed expressions ("step foot") and
others aren't ("a sheik venue"). No, the site isn't
consistent, and I've been struggling to find a label for those
that are part of idioms. "Idiomatic" isn't it.
Third, yes, there is quite a bit of vagueness around the
contours. We keep finding entirely new types of eggcorns, with
something we hadn't considered before being reanalysed. Maybe
a morpheme. Or the pronunciation being changed when the
spelling isn't. Many, many of the (a bit overwhelmingly
numerous) submissions are just amusing malapropisms, but
things get tricky if they just might be a little more than
that. For most entries, the best one can say is that the
substitution is an eggcorn (i.e. driven by the desire to make
sense of an opaque bit of language) for some writers, and for
others it may just be insensitivity to how things are spelled.
This gets particularly hairy for examples that coincide with
frequent typos (an inversion of letters, or a dropped letter,
say).
|
This is where I have a problem with the way you appear to be
expanding the territory of what can be called an "eggcorn".
People in this group can spend hours -- and way too many posts --
arguing about the precise difference between an initialism and an
acronym, or between a malapropism and a misused homonym. (I've
seen objections to the "their/there" error being called a
"malapropism", on the grounds that the result is not amusing.)
"Eggcorn" for "acorn" is a specific type of error: it rationalises
the creation of a reasonable -- but previously non-existent -- word
to represent something the writer has heard.
To categorise *all* forms of word-errors by a good term for a
single type of error seems to me to create too vague a category to
be of use. Grouping a whole range of word errors -- everything
from a misused homonym to a malapropism to a typo to a mondegreen -
- under a useful term which describes one specific type of word
error strikes me as erroneous naming.
| Quote: | Still, the "About" page and the Language Log posts referenced
therein, in particular Arnold Zwicky's "Lady Mondegreen says
her peace about egg corns"
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/%7Emyl/languagelog/archives/000074.ht
ml>, with
its careful classification of reshapings, do provide some
pointers to the elements that come into play for eggcorns as
opposed to other kinds of "lexical errors", or as a particular
subset of them.
|
But whilst here you're implying that eggcorns differ from other
kinds of lexical errors, further up you appear to wish to call
everything from malapropisms to typos to differing idioms by the
same name of "eggcorns".
Either an eggcorn is a specific type of lexical error, or it's not:
you don't have to be French to object to the simultaneous use of a
single word as (a) the name of a generic set and (b) the name of a
specific, narrow sub-set of that same generic set.
I assume you wouldn't apply the term "mondegreen" to things like
typos and different idiomatic uses. I don't see the justification
for using "eggcorn" to cover typos, different idiomatic uses,
mondegreens, and everything else.
(I do realise that the misapplication of "eggcorn" to describe word
errors which aren't eggcorns could be ironic. If that's
intentional, though, the collection of errors seems more like a
language plaything -- "here's a wide range of errors, the name of
which is itself an error" -- than the analytical tool you appear to
wish it to be.)
--
Cheers, Harvey
Canadian (30 years) and British (23 years)
For e-mail, change harvey.news to harvey.van |
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Harvey Van Sickle
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2005 5:23 pm
Post subject: Re: Define "eggcorn", please (was Re: The Eggcornin' Bob Dyl |
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On 05 Nov 2005, Ross Howard wrote
| Quote: | On Fri, 04 Nov 2005 22:16:40 GMT, Harvey Van Sickle
harvey.news@ntlworld.com> wrought:
The term "eggcorn" appears to mean whatever people want it
mean.
[..]
(As you can tell, [...] I'm not sold on this catch-all term
of "eggcorn": it looks like so broad a category as to be
meaningless.)
It's defined clearly enough on the "About" page of Chris's
site, but here's my undertanding of the term (correct me,
Chris or Ben, if I've got the wrong end of the shtick):
There are three particular kinds of solecisms in which a
soundalike word or phrase is used instead of the standard one:
malaprops, mondegreens and eggcorns. The difference between
them lies not so much in the nature of the change that the
word or phrase undergoes as in the *reason* why the change was
made.
Malaprops result from attempting to use a word that belongs to
a higher register than you are really comfortable with and
getting it hopelessly wrong, using instead another word that
you don't really understand either.. In other words, they stem
from biting off more than you can lexically chew, usually with
absurd results:
She talks ever so posh. She's had electrocution lessons,
you know.
Mondegreens are easy to define: they are mis-heard song
lyrics, and may affect not just one word but a whole line. The
result may bear some relation to the original, but it needn't.
What it must do, though, is be composed of a very similar
cluster of phonemes.
Now eggcorns. Like mondegreens, they're usually the result of
someone having mis-heard a word or set phrase and getting it
-- or, if a phrase, a key part of it -- wrong. However, they
generally have a strange sort of internal logic, and in many
cases they may even make rather more sense than the original
version, at least at first sight. A good example was mentioned
here by Mike Lyle a couple of years ago: to be "streaks ahead"
instead of "streets ahead". It makes sense because the winners
of races do indeed streak ahead of their competitors, and what
are streets supposed to have to do with the price of fish?
|
But when that overlaps with mondegreens or malapropisms -- or with
what I'd maintain is simply a different idiomatic phrase, like
"never stepped foot in" -- it doesn't strike me as a useful
category.
There are good examples of each type, but the overlaps are too
vague, and the inclusion of idiom differences appears to me to be a
case of extending the term to cover all sorts of word errors: a
kind of lexical land-grab.
| Quote: | This is why I called "step foot in" a classic eggcorn. (I
agree that "classic" is perhaps not the happiest word I could
have used; how about "canonical", then?) After all, we have
"footsteps" so why not "step foot"? When you think about it,
though, an eggcorn it has to be -- not only should the foot be
the subject rather than the object of "step", but "set" is
used to mean place with extremities (as in the legalese "set
my hand" meaning "sign"). "Set foot in" is archaic in its
form, but it's still modern idiomatic English, while step foot
in passes the eggcorn test: it's a soundalike error but it
makes a certain amount of sense
|
I don't think it *is* a soundalike "error": I think it's a
regional difference in idiom. And other entries in there --
"bemused/amused" and "every since" -- seem to me to be errors of an
entirely different kinds.
(The first of those strikes me as a meaning shift, similar to
"disinterested", whilst the second could easily be a simple
typo/editing error. Who's to know? There's too little to go on to
impute intent.)
| Quote: | Rather than being meaningless, I find it a useful term for a
phenomenon that is not only of interest here (more on-topic,
impossible) -- it's often a helluva lot of fun.
|
It might be useful for a specific phenomenon, but when it's
extended to cover meaning shifts like bemused/amused -- or, I'd
maintain, idiom differences like "never stepped foot in" -- it
becomes, to my mind, a meaningless category.
I'll leave you guys to it -- have fun -- but won't be joining in
the seemingly-enthusiastic extension of the term to cover all sorts
of word errors.
--
Cheers, Harvey
Canadian (30 years) and British (23 years)
For e-mail, change harvey.news to harvey.van |
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Chris Waigl
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2005 10:09 pm
Post subject: Re: Define "eggcorn", please (was Re: The Eggcornin' Bob Dyl |
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On Sat, 05 Nov 2005 09:43:33 +0000, Harvey Van Sickle wrote:
| Quote: | On 04 Nov 2005, Chris Waigl wrote
Second, your analogy is askew. The following is still not
perfect, but better: _chic_ is to _sheik_ in "a very sheik
venue" like _set_ to _step_ in "(I) never stepped foot in
there again".
That's precisely what I mean by it being too vague: they're only
similar in that a different word is being used to that which is
expected: one's a homonym, whilst the other (I think) is a
difference in idiom.
|
You can only call it a "difference" in an idiom if "step foot" is indeed
an idiom -- regionally, dialectally, you name it. This is what we
discovered in this very thread. Ben Zimmer immediately labelled the entry
as "questionable".
But for other idiom-related eggcorns, unquestionable ones, like for
example "be up to stuff" or "far-gone conclusion", you are supposing that
something fundamentally different is going on compared to what you'd
prefer to call "homonym errors". Well, "far-gone" and "foregone" are
homonyms, too, at least in some varieties of English.
So what now? Whether you think that for an individual (and that's what
we're dealing with: the written productions of individuals) "homonym" and
"idiom" are sharply defined categories that determine their word
choice will depend on the theoretical framework you're working from.
Hashing out these questions may be highly interesting, but I don't really
see a reason to delay collecting examples until the entire world agrees on
one model of language production.
| Quote: | Third, yes, there is quite a bit of vagueness around the
contours. We keep finding entirely new types of eggcorns, with
something we hadn't considered before being reanalysed. Maybe
a morpheme. Or the pronunciation being changed when the
spelling isn't. Many, many of the (a bit overwhelmingly
numerous) submissions are just amusing malapropisms, but
things get tricky if they just might be a little more than
that. For most entries, the best one can say is that the
substitution is an eggcorn (i.e. driven by the desire to make
sense of an opaque bit of language) for some writers, and for
others it may just be insensitivity to how things are spelled.
This gets particularly hairy for examples that coincide with
frequent typos (an inversion of letters, or a dropped letter,
say).
This is where I have a problem with the way you appear to be
expanding the territory of what can be called an "eggcorn".
|
I am?
| Quote: | [...]
"Eggcorn" for "acorn" is a specific type of error: it rationalises
the creation of a reasonable -- but previously non-existent -- word
to represent something the writer has heard.
|
Well, yes, there you have it. With two caveats: First, no one can know
what was "previously non-existent"; chances are that the same thing gets
invented many times over independently, and in any case, once invented, it
will spread directly, by imitation, if it is sensible enough. Second,
eggcorns are about production, not perception. I happen to find this
particular distinction useful.
| Quote: | To categorise *all* forms of word-errors by a good term for a
single type of error seems to me to create too vague a category to
be of use.
|
Obviously. Where is anyone doing this?
| Quote: | Grouping a whole range of word errors -- everything
from a misused homonym to a malapropism to a typo to a mondegreen -
- under a useful term which describes one specific type of word
error strikes me as erroneous naming.
[...]
But whilst here you're implying that eggcorns differ from other
kinds of lexical errors, further up you appear to wish to call
everything from malapropisms to typos to differing idioms by the
same name of "eggcorns".
|
The operative word is "appear". I don't wish anything like this. The above
part, which I left in, was about the difficulty of telling apart, say,
eggcorns and typos. Obviously typos are something entirely different. When
you're confronted with a particular sample of writing, though, you start
out not knowing what went on there to generate a usage you or I think is
"wrong". On the inadvertent side alone there are typos, spell-checker
substitutions, typing automatisms (when you type a particularly common
letter combination while your brain is already processing the next word),
cut-and-paste errors and basic orthographic ignorance. Probably there are
more categories. None of them are eggcorns.
Now how do you go about finding out if a particular non-standard use is of
this type even though the end product makes a new kind of sense? You
usually can't ask the writer, and even if you can, "not knowing how to
spell correctly" comes with so much stigma attached that a lot of them
would rather admit a typo than defend the reasoning that has led them to
making the substitution.
And then there's dialectal variation, slang, and other mechanisms of
language change I know much too little about. And we haven't even started
on malapropisms yet.
The Eggcorn Database isn't the OED, Arnold Zwicky's and Ben Zimmer's
contributions nonwithstanding; still, some thought does go into what is
entered and what isn't. A submission I recently rejected is "sylphilis"
for "syphilis". "Syphilis" is misspelled in various ways, and I found
it unlikely that the users of "sylphilis" were aware of and driven by the
word "sylph".
I also think it would be useful to restrict the term "malapropisms" to the
non-eggcornish type, i.e. those that aren't driven by a desire to make
sense within the constraints of what one perceives the appropriate word
has to be. But the term has its own history, I don't get to decide that.
As for idioms, there's no reason they should be a priori excluded from a
source of language change/variation/error that is available to non-idioms.
Maybe the problem you have with idiom-related eggcorns is that an idiom
makes too good of a target. Most incorporate some sort of figurative
language. Eggcorns are often based on substituting the writer's private
metaphor for an existing one. It is therefore not surprising that
re-interpretations of the sense of an expressions occur particularly often
in idioms.
| Quote: | Either an eggcorn is a specific type of lexical error, or it's not:
you don't have to be French to object to the simultaneous use of a
single word as (a) the name of a generic set and (b) the name of a
specific, narrow sub-set of that same generic set.
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(b)
There's nothing wrong, though, with carrying on the discussion about what
the specifics of the subset actually are.
| Quote: | I assume you wouldn't apply the term "mondegreen" to things like
typos and different idiomatic uses. I don't see the justification
for using "eggcorn" to cover typos, different idiomatic uses,
mondegreens, and everything else.
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Forgive me if I'm blunt, but then don't do it. I certainly don't.
Chris Waigl
--
blog: http://serendipity.lascribe.net/
eggcorns: http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/ |
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Chris Waigl
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2005 11:18 pm
Post subject: Re: Define "eggcorn", please (was Re: The Eggcornin' Bob Dyl |
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On Sat, 05 Nov 2005 10:23:10 +0000, Harvey Van Sickle wrote:
| Quote: | On 05 Nov 2005, Ross Howard wrote
There are three particular kinds of solecisms in which a
soundalike word or phrase is used instead of the standard one:
malaprops, mondegreens and eggcorns. The difference between
them lies not so much in the nature of the change that the
word or phrase undergoes as in the *reason* why the change was
made.
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Well, these three have been labelled and are sufficiently well-defined for
some of us to be useful as a category of lexical or phrasal substitutions.
| Quote: | Malaprops result from attempting to use a word that belongs to a higher
register than you are really comfortable with and getting it hopelessly
wrong, using instead another word that you don't really understand
either.. In other words, they stem from biting off more than you can
lexically chew, usually with absurd results:
She talks ever so posh. She's had electrocution lessons, you know.
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I have this rule of thumb for telling eggcorns and "canonical" (see!)
malaprops apart: In the latter, you substitute a big word you don't really
understand for the original big word you don't really understand. In the
former, you do understand the word(s) you actually use, replacing a big
word you don't really understand; they just happen to be idiosyncratic or
plain erroneous.
| Quote: | Mondegreens are easy to define: they are mis-heard song lyrics, and may
affect not just one word but a whole line. The result may bear some
relation to the original, but it needn't. What it must do, though, is
be composed of a very similar cluster of phonemes.
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What is also required of eggcorns is phonetic closeness -- they should do
better than "electrocution" for "elocution" or "allegory" for "alligator".
This is something they have in common with mondegreens, but the similarity
ends there. Mondegreens are errors of perception, not of production, and
they are related to specific auditory material: a particular performance
of a song (X sang by Y on CD Z), the Lord's prayer as recited by the
priest of my parish, the Pledge of Allegiance... There's nothing wrong
with saying "excuse me while I kiss this guy" if you actually want to talk
about kissing a guy.
| Quote: | Now eggcorns. Like mondegreens, they're usually the result of someone
having mis-heard a word or set phrase and getting it -- or, if a
phrase, a key part of it -- wrong. However, they generally have a
strange sort of internal logic, and in many cases they may even make
rather more sense than the original version, at least at first sight. A
good example was mentioned here by Mike Lyle a couple of years ago: to
be "streaks ahead" instead of "streets ahead". It makes sense because
the winners of races do indeed streak ahead of their competitors, and
what are streets supposed to have to do with the price of fish?
But when that overlaps with mondegreens or malapropisms -- or with what
I'd maintain is simply a different idiomatic phrase, like "never stepped
foot in" -- it doesn't strike me as a useful category.
There are good examples of each type, but the overlaps are too vague,
and the inclusion of idiom differences appears to me to be a case of
extending the term to cover all sorts of word errors: a kind of lexical
land-grab.
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Well, thanks for giving me a laugh.
I am glad that you (Harvey Van Sickle) are recognising that there are
"good examples of each type". That's something. It means that we have
grasped the tail end of a useful category.
| Quote: | This is why I called "step foot in" a classic eggcorn. (I agree that
"classic" is perhaps not the happiest word I could have used; how about
"canonical", then?) After all, we have "footsteps" so why not "step
foot"? When you think about it, though, an eggcorn it has to be -- not
only should the foot be the subject rather than the object of "step",
but "set" is used to mean place with extremities (as in the legalese
"set my hand" meaning "sign"). "Set foot in" is archaic in its form,
but it's still modern idiomatic English, while step foot in passes the
eggcorn test: it's a soundalike error but it makes a certain amount of
sense
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I would agree if there weren't signs of "step foot" being an idiom, maybe
regionally restricted, that exists independently from "set foot", and has
for a while. This would be for the lexicographer to decide.
On the other hand, the vagueness that Harvey Van Sickle criticises is to a
certain degree unavoidable, however much we work on reducing it.
a) A substitution can be an eggcorn for some ("huh, it's supposed to be
'set foot'? but I've always thought of footsteps; well, ok, I'm not
actually sure I've heard anyone else say 'step' -- it could have been
'set'") and an idiom for others ("in my neighbourhood, we have been saying
'step foot' for generations, and that's what my mom taught me to say").
b) What's actually "sounding alike"? Luckily, there are some phoneticians
who are interested in eggcorns and help clear up the matter somewhat. *
c) History. Some eggcorns are becoming mainstream, some ex-eggcorns are in
the dictionaries, labelled as folk etymologies. "Tow the line" and "free
reign" are definitely going down this road. (Both, I may add, are
idiom-related eggcorns.) So for some popular substitutions we will, at
some point, have to grapple with the question "Eggcorn or idiom variant?"
| Quote: | I don't think it *is* a soundalike "error": I think it's a regional
difference in idiom. And other entries in there -- "bemused/amused" and
"every since" -- seem to me to be errors of an entirely different kinds.
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d) Newness. The definition is evolving. I'm sympathetic to Harvey Van
Sickle's criticism of "be/amused", but not totally decided yet. This is
indeed an entry that the longer I look at it, the more it moves towards
the "questionable" end of the eggcorn scale. What kinds of semantic
reinterpretations -- and this is indeed one -- do we include?
e) Theoretical frameworks. Some will argue that "ever" and "every" are
semantically near-identical; the few licks of formal linguistic training I
have received, for the time being, happen to be of the school that
grammatical function words have very rich semantics. Others are very
reluctant to delve into the semantics of function words. Interpretations
and analyses of semantics can vary.
And there's probably an f), g) and h) as well.
Even those who have an excellent handle on what an eggcorn is supposed to
be may disagree about whether a particular example falls into this
category. Harvey Van Sickle's last two examples are good in the sense that
a case could be made either way.
Delimitation debates have a tendency to turn sterile. Reducing the areas
of uncertainty and vagueness in the definition of "eggcorn" and in the
actual entries is a worthy goal and some of my and our efforts go into
this. Not missing out on interesting cases which, after a time of
reflection may or may not be grouped with the eggcorns is another worthy
goal.
Maybe some have more objections than others to works-in-progress. That
there will be some unavoidable vagueness despite efforts to reduce it
doesn't give me sleepless nights.
Chris Waigl
--
blog: http://serendipity.lascribe.net/
eggcorns: http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/ |
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Chris Waigl
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 4:14 am
Post subject: Re: The Eggcornin' Bob Dylan |
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5 minutes ago, I wrote:
| Quote: | Oops: 76 GHits for "step | stepped | steps | stepping foot" in the
guardian.co.uk domain: <http://shorl.com/gehusonigoky>.
Ben, do we need an addendum or so? Is it dialectal? Or just becoming
mainstream faster than we were thinking?
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Ok, you were faster than I had imagined. Great.
Chris Waigl
--
blog: http://serendipity.lascribe.net/
eggcorns: http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/
personal blog : just ask for the URL |
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