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"What's an eggcorn when it's at home?"
I hear you cry.
Well, here's one, from GR's own FB page.
GenesReunited remarked, in response to one of the interminable cooing posts about Long Lost Family (okay, it's one of those things I can never remember the real name of, like my local grocery store and all the characters on Corrie):
"Here here"
Now, that's a complete nonsense. What would it mean?? "Come hither, come hither"? "Here here" sounds like a command one would issue to a dog.
Of course, it is really
HEAR, HEAR.
http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/forum/viewtopic.php?id=2735
From the OED:
"13. a. The imperative hear!, now usually repeated, hear! hear! (formerly hear him! hear him!) is used as an exclamation to call attention to a speaker’s words, and hence has become a general expression of approbation or ‘cheering’.
It is now the regular form of cheering in the House of Commons, and expresses, according to intonation, admiration, acquiescence, indignation, derision, etc."
"Here, here" is an eggcorn.
"Eggcorn" is what some people think those roundish green squashes are called.
They heard "acorn squash", but when you think about it, that's an odd sort of name (it comes from the shape), so somehow, "egg corn squash" made more sense to them.
If you google it, you get wondrous things like
http://how-to-cooks.blogspot.com/2011/04/how-to-cook-egg-corn-squash.html
And sure enough, there are many luscious pictures of acorn squashes -- including one with the label right on it saying "Baked Acorn Squash".
"Tow the line" is another common one. Of course it's "toe the line", coming from military line-ups, but people hear it as "tow" ... and then make up backstories for it. It comes from towing canal boats and having to keep on the straight and narrow while doing it.
The thing with eggcorns is that people know the underlying meaning of the expression, they just get the expression itself wrong, and some of them -- and the explanations they give for them -- are pretty funny.
http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/
"Without addressing these issues, NOW and others have nothing to offer the average Jane and in consequence, have allowed Sarah Palin and her elk to define women’s issues."
Any other pedants around who'd like to share eggcorns "spotted in the wild"?
;)
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I see I mentioned eggcorns here once before. ;)
http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards.page/board/chat/thread/1220785
My parents used to enjoy perusing the small ads for such things.
Chester drawers
and
Chip 'n Dale table
were two of their favourites.
As I noted in that thread:
And the funny thing is - when I google
chippendale eggcorn
I come up with all kinds of ads for Chippendale furniture things with "eggcorn finials". !!!
Another excellent example is Old Timer's Disease.
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