Are you getting these phrases wrong too? | EGGCORNS
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- Опубликовано: 12 июн 2024
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Eggcorns are no "old wise tale". These misheard phrases are everywhere. In this video we look at lots of examples of these amusing mishaps and try to understand why they happen, with the help of Professor Mark Liberman who helped coin the term "eggcorn". We also discuss other linguistic calamities, including malapropisms, folk etymologies and mondegreens.
==LINKS==
Prof. Liberman's blog post inspired by our chat: languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll...
The Bonnie Earl O' Moray song: • 7. The Bonnie Earl 'O ...
Online eggcorn database: eggcorns.lascribe.net/browse-...
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==CHAPTERS==
0:00 Introduction
0:45 What is an "eggcorn"?
1:45 Mark Liberman explains the name
3:57 Malapropisms
5:20 Rob's confession
5:56 Mondegreens - origin & Hendrix
7:27 Spot the eggcorns with NordVPN
9:00 Eggcorns aren't stupid
10:20 Butt naked or buck naked?
11:50 Old Timer's Disease, wet your appetite, just desserts
13:25 Damp squid or damp squib
14:08 Historic eggcorns
14:53 Folk etymologies: Jerusalem artichoke
17:31 Call for foreign eggcorns
Edited with Gling AI: bit.ly/46bGeYv
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I would love to see a video on English words which came from Indian languages. Please make a video on that. Please 🙏🙏🙏
That was unquestionably the best VPN ad of all time!
as soon as a vpn ad-vert started I stopped watching ....
It makes no deference to me... Hay! Ewe axed ferret.
Feeble position 🤣🤣🤣. In Texas they use "butt naked" all the time. When I moved there I thought it was just a Texan thing.
My biggest pet peeve is "I could care less" which completely 180s the meaning of the phrase. Yet, you hear it more often than "I couldn't care less".
@meytecc8601
I talk to people all the time who were never taught in school that it is "I couldn't care less," or the difference betwixt "lay" and "lie," or that "myself" is neither used as an object or a subject. One does wonder, "What were they taught?"
mine too.
For me, it's the confusion between Sliver and Slither. I hate correcting people, but every time someone asks for a slither of cake I have to tell them it's a cake, not a snake!
This one's just sarcasm
@@RCSVirginia wait - when are you supposed to use "myself" then? All uses for nouns that I know of (outside of parenthetical appositives) can be classified as either a subject or an object (direct object of the verb, indirect object of the verb, or object of the preposition). I pretty much exclusively use it as an object (direct object as in "I hit myself in the head," indirect object as in "I gave myself a gift," preposition-object as in "I'm by myself")
I suppose it's sometimes used as an adverb ("I did it myself") rather than as a pronoun - is that what you're referring to as the "correct" usage?
A friend of mine had always called a chest of drawers "Chester Drawers" and - not sure this is an eggcorn but - a friend of my husband's believed as a child that there was a household deity called the Time Being because her parents left temporary offerings to it, as they would say, "We can leave that there for the time being."
wow "the time being" is one of the best ones here. It's geniusly hilarious
I thought it was Chester draws for a long time. Chester is just where i thought the furniture originated from.
@@Edward_HodgesIt's probably near Chesterfield
You just converted me to belief in the Time Being. Every time I hear or use that phrase from now on I’ll be thinking of appeasing some wrathful temporal deity.
I think I have found enlightenment!!! 😎
I don't know where this falls but I work in pest control in Texas and there are a lot of little geckos. The insurance commercials for Geico with the gecko have confused a lot of people who now complain about all the giecos they have around the house 😂
😂🤣
Yeah, and I bet they are ANOLES, not geckos
😂😂😂😂😂
Geicos?
😂😂😂😂😂
“For all intensive purposes” is a personal favourite
I like to slip in for all infant porpoises sometimes to see if people notice.
This drives me crazy! I swear I hear it more often than the correct phrase.
@@johnmoore8067😂 this one kinda drives me nuts too
All in tents and porpoises, as well.
I thought it was intensive purposes for a long time too.
I also thought people were saying don't take things or granite, as in sturdy like bedrock. Imagine my disappointment when I learned it was granted as in guaranteed.
My favorite eggcorn is "Duck Tape" which is a rather remarkable DOUBLE eggcorn. Most people think duck tape is the incorrect form of duct tape and that the name of the product refers to its application to duct work. But the problem is that that "duct tape" isn't actually made for ventilation. If you research the history of the tape, you would learn that it was originally named for the cloth like substrate known as "duck" that gives it strength.
So it was originally called "duck tape," but over time, it became known as duct tape because it seems like it's designed for ducts (even though it isn't). Ironically "duct tape" became so ubiquitous that the brand name "Duck Tape" was presumed to be a play on words and is now a registered trademark in the US, which should not be possible considering the proper original name for the product was always "duck tape".
I used to use duct tape all the time for duct work and got very frustrated when I found out that all of my duct tape was failing on the heat of the duct. Some of the duct work is buried in the walls and I can't replace it now !!
@@sharonshookup The fact that duck tape is ubiquitously referred to as "duct tape" and that duck tape is now trademarked is one of the greatest crimes ever committed against the english language, second only to Merriam-Webster literally using the words "not literally" in their definition of "literally", which I can't even think about without shaking with rage.
Duck tape was used in ww2 for tapping pants legs do they did not get wet feet hence duck tape
@@VinceBlack536 Sounds like apocryphal. The product was already called duck tape prior to WWII because it used cotton duck as a substrate.
All Band Aids are adhesive bandages, but not all adhesive bandages are Band Aids . The same goes for Duck Tape and duct tape .
When I was at school, my English teacher told me not to worry about spelling or grammar because in the future there will always be autocorrect, and for that I am internally grapefruit.
😂😂😂
Autocorrect is like having a very small elf living in your phone who is, unfortunately, extremely drunk. That's why it's wrong so often.
NICE
Except autocorrect always makes me say things I didn't Nintendo
Doggy Dog World is the one I said wrong my whole life, and I found out like 2 years ago it was Dog EAT Dog World. It blew my mine because it makes infinitely more sense to me
“if worse comes to worst” is meant to mean if a bad situation becomes a dire situation but almost everyone I know says “if worse comes to worse” … which basically is saying if the situation remains unchanged
Actually, the correct idiom is "if worst comes to worst," i.e., the worst situation arises. So people have been getting it wrong for a long time.
@@weirdofromhalo Came to this video to find this exact reply to this exact comment. Haha, just kidding, it was completely axe a dental.
I've seen a whole lot of people lately just confusing the words "worse" and "worst" in general
“Worst” does not mean “more bad than worse”. Worse is the comparative and is only for 2 things. Worst is the superlative and is only for 3 or more. It’s a fallacy to think “oh man, it was worse already and now it’s worst”
Correct usage: Chevy is worse than Ford. Pontiac is the worst of all.
Probably the most effective use of an ad in a RUclips video, forcing watchers to actually watch the full ad and not skip ahead. Definitely deserves a like 👍
I skipped it.
@VincentFastFingers I also skipped it. Thanks, sponserblock!
I skipped it lol
I enjoyed it
It was clever and kind of fun!
I retired from assembly line work. Almost everyone had "corporal" tunnel. The first time I heard it I laughed and said it must be a major pain.
And a general distraction from getting work done. You can sure admiral their can-dew spewit, though.
Not carpet tunnel?
@@gary_rumain_you_peons nope, corporal tunnel. But I like carpal tunnel.
@@rottndachs I've heard it called carpet tunnel. Never did work out what the underlaying issue was.
My old boss said CORPORATE tunnel 😂
I hate in-video ad reads, but that was the most inventive way I've seen a RUclipsr incorporate one. Good job, Rob.
I use a sponsor block but it skipped to the list and asking how many did you get. A good way to force one to go back and watch the ad, quite inventive, it wouldn't surprise me if it was done on purpose 😁
I swear he uses the ad reads to have as much linguist fun as possible.
I usually fast-forward the sponsorship spiel, I may have to go back and listen to this one.
I too watched a whole sponsor ad for the first time ever
Yes, it was a clever way to get us to watch the sponsor spiel. Bravo!
I know the proper sayings and when I hear people say the phrase wrong it literally hurts my brain. I despise when people call the median strip in a roadway the medium strip. I hear people say butt naked all of the time, they think it's correct and tell me buck naked makes no sense while butt naked does. I now no longer even bother trying to tell anyone they've said anything wrong. It is painful to keep my mouth closed but it's best to do so. I had an Aunt that misspoke often. She told me she knitted several pretty little Africans to donate to the hospital for newborn babies. She told a lot of people that her son was going blind from masculine degeneration (lol). I frequently see people posting items online saying they are made of rod iron or rot iron instead of wrought iron. I worked with a woman, a college graduate, that always said pacifically when she meant specifically. It was extremely difficult for me not to correct her but I managed not to. Oh I know another one, the right to bear arms I see people write the right to bare arms (lol). In a church hymn my dad thought a portion of the lyrics was "bringing in the sheep" but it is actually "bringing in the sheaves". I'm sure I know many more that are not immediately coming to mind.
Singing "bringing in the sheep" in church is not wrong. 😅
Wow, let's be friends. My list is pretty much identical.🤣🤣🤣
@@bunnybgood411 Oh I get it, sheep-le going to church, lol. For a second I thought you thought the lyrics actually were, "We shall come rejoicing bringing in the sheep" lol.
Yeah, you'll just be called a grammar Nazi if u correct someone on social media.
You aren't alone. We silently stand united.
I think the worst to me right now is the ever-growing misuse of "Voila!" People are saying "Walla!" Drives me CRAZY! And it's only a matter of time it becomes adopted as a real word because of the sheer number of people using it.
What this all comes down to is people aren't reading enough. They've never seen these words and phrases in written form.
I am in my late 40s and only realised that the word was pronounced that way in the past few years. I did a lot of reading up until my early to mid 30s and the word was always strange to me. Made so much sense once I figured it out. Definite 🤦♀️ moment
I’m with you. My friends call me the grammar nazi 😂
Yes! Unless a person is being a supercilious jerk, or I care about how the person is perceived, I don’t correct them.
You mean like when people write 'would of' instead of 'would've '? Drives me crazy!
But isn't voila a French word meaning attention? Does that still count as an egg corn? I feel like it still should even though it is a.language barrier thing.
My favorite and most frustrating is when someone insist something is a “mute” point instead of a “moot” point.
I prefer the version from Friends. “It’s a moo point. It’s like a cow, it doesn’t matter!” 😜
@@Barghaest yeh a cows opinion, classic Joey
@@alexbarber1566exactly!
The "moo point" would be a muglare (not sure on spelling) wouldn't it, as Joey was commonly trying to sound educated like his friends who went to college, but he just didn't get it.
But the moot point/mute point most definitely are eggcorns especially since, if I remember it correctly, moot means unspoken of where as mute means not spoken/speaking. Either way, they are unheard.
With you on this. Thank you!
There is a charming eggcorn in Afrikaans, Bromkatjies (pronounced bromkaikees). It is a mis-hearing of the English word bronchitis, the chest infection. But Bromkatjies literally translates thus: brom is like a grumbling hum, like what you do when you are unhappy with something, and katjies are kittens. So when you have bronchitis, you have grumbling kittens. Perfect.
oh this might be a phono-semantic matching actually! they're very interesting too
South African is so imaginative dutch :-). I just pronounce bronchitis the dutch spelling way..
Love that!
It really is terrible having grumbling kittens, what do you egg speck? Purr-fection?
Hi there fellow South African!!
"WREAK havoc" (correct) vs. "WRECK havoc" (incorrect) and "the results varied WIDELY" (correct) vs. "the results varied WILDLY" (incorrect)
I see wreck havoc constantly, and it kind of goes with the other big one: step foot.
You wreck things while you wreak havoc, and you step when you set foot. So close, and yet so painful to hear the wrong one.
So would “refried beans” be a folk etymology?
“Refried beans” are only fried once. English speakers assumed that the word “refritos” in the term “frijoles refritos” meant “refried,” when it actually means “well fried.” As a Texan who speaks Spanish and also loves some good Mexican & Tex-Mex food, that has always amused me.
Look up the etymology of chimichanga if you want a good laugh.
Best I've heard:
Years ago a coworker was furious at my manager and declared "You burnt your britches with me Mike!!!!". It was pretty epic, and while I recall he had good reason to be angry, nobody could take him seriously.
Those are some “hot pants”!
@@Jan-qv8ku haha well played
crossing burnt bridges often results in burns britches!
Good thing Mike wasn't too big for his bridges
I guess after that he'd be "all mouth and no trousers." (Not an eggcorn, but an expression I was most amused to hear on British tv).
I once emailed a boss to let them know I’d be sending them “the whole kitten caboodle” the next day. She let me know she couldn’t stop laughing at the thought of what a “kitten caboodle” would look like, but in future I may want to write “the whole kit and caboodle” instead. Not sure if that counts as an eggcorn, but whatever it is, it still makes me smile.
Sounds like an eggcorn to me. It also made me laugh - sounded like something someone would knit and put a kitten in.
I vote to rename a litter of kittens to a caboodle.
Good sport!
Me too😂
I now need to see a kitten kaboodle. Also I caught that typo immediately after I typed it, but I'll leave it in because that too is interesting on this topic.
I use eggcorns simply for my own amusement. One of my favorites is, “It isn’t rocket surgery” instead of rocket science. Only ONCE did someone mention it, and it was totally awesome!
You've actually just spliced two phrases together.
Me too! That is a particular favorite of mine 😂
I think that would be considered a malaphor! Good one! My husband is similar, and he likes to say, "We'll burn that bridge when we get to it."
@@audrieking7109 I feel like that's more of a lifestyle choice, and I would know :) Cheers
That's funny, but it's not an eggcorn.
I was once given a ticket for failure to yield the "right of way"....but the ticket read "right away"
I argued that the misspelling represented misunderstanding by the cop who ticketed me for not moving immediately to the left lane.
Had he been on the other side would I have been guilty of failing to yield "the left away"
Judge was not impressed, found me guilty.
Took me a second to realize we must live on opposite sides of the pond. 😂 In the States, I guess you could say “right of way” works in both of those contexts!
One of the best jokes from MASH. 'They have an edible complex, it's where you can't love any food other than your mother's cooking'
I think my favorite mash joke is a bit where Margret keeps answering questions for Frank to Henry and Henry says “Frank if you don’t shut up I’m going to have to punch her in the mouth”….. also basically any joke in a scene that has col. Flagg
Yes, jokes! I'm sure they can explain the number of these egg corns!
The favourite one that I ever heard was when my wife and I were guests at a wedding reception and another guest was telling us about her friend who had been injured and had to go to the emergency room at the hospital. Her injuries were so bad that she had to be transferred to the "drama ward" instead of trauma ward. The story continued for several minutes with numerous references to the "drama ward". The first time, we assumed it was a slip of the tongue caused by the open bar. By the fifth or sixth time, we realized that she assumed it was the "drama ward" because it was very dramatic. Over thirty years later, my wife and I still jokingly refer to it that way.
to be fair hospitals do have theatres
That's a fantastic eggcorn!
The lady who helped my mom clean the house often had to stay home because her very close veins were hurting.
In the UK we don’t have “trauma wards” or “emergency rooms” so I assume this must be American.
@@thesushifiend North American, but Canadian to be precise.
I 100% refuse the name "eggcorn" for this phenomenon, and will die on the hill in favour of "BoneAppleTea"
Buck Naked...deer bucks lose their velvet and the antlers become bare.
I always thought it was deer related and deer wear no clothing so we wear as naked as a buck.
My grandparents always said naked as a jaybird! Now that I think about it, IDK why!🤔🤔
@@kevlarskeeper4927 My family too and again, birds don't wear clothes so it made sense. I was about ten years old before I figured out that "birthday suit" meant nude, as you were born.
@@kevlarskeeper4927 Same here. Never understood that phrase.
I assumed it had something to do with the natives and the buckskin clothing that they wore. When they weren't wearing it they were buck-naked....? 🤷🏽
My mother considered herself the paragon of decorum and as such always spoke euphemistically when referring to topics she considered socially sensative. In our house "butt" was a four-letter word, and "buttocks" was little better, so she often used "derriere" to refer to one's "nether regions." When I was seven or eight years old, my piano teacher held a recital, and one of the older students played a tune called "Londonderry Air." I couldn't imagine why someone would play a tune about an English person's nether regions.
That was the melody used for the song "Danny boy"
Its just the derry air.
sensItive
😂😂😂
😂
Once when my uncle was seriously ill, my aunt wrote that he was "in tents of care", which I thought was kind of lovely
As an ICU RN, I, also, think “in tents-of care” is lovely. ❤
@JaimeMesChiens Especially oxygen tents. Are they even used any more?
Same thing really, for all intensive purposes…
@@michaelwisniewski6047 *...intents and purposes...
LOL
I initially thought these were Spoonerism’s but I was just parking up the wrong tree.
My favorite eggcorn malaphor:
Eating humble pie.
It is - eating UMBLE pie.
The meaning of phrase is same, and humbled is the meaning of phrase eating umble pie, and if you dont know what umble is then you assume person said humble.
Umbles the intestines. While those of high society ate choice cuts in the dining room, down stairs the servants ate umbels in the kitchen, so the saying is to be humbled by losing social status.
The Hong Kong flu pandemic broke out in 1968. My brother had no knowledge of a place called Hong Kong but, with all the coughing going on, to his five year old mind it made perfect sense to think people were calling it the Honk-Honk flu. 😁
Oh that is just precious! 😂
He was just predicting Bird Flu.
woah like Hong Kong phuey
Funny
Brill!!! 😂😂😂
Although I never knew about "egg corns" at the time, a fine example comes to mind from the TV show Friends.
Joey says something about a "moo point". Monica (I think) says, "Don't you mean a moot point?"
And Joey replies, "No, a moo point. It's like a cow's opinion: it just doesn't matter."
That joke is udderly terrible.
Teats(to each) their own.
Oof - I hear "mute point" all the time (rather than "moot").
People in the comments are really milking the puns 😂
The Nexflix show "The Ranch" and the "Fish's Cycle" (Has no legs so can't pedal!) - for Vicious Cycle
The one that annoys me the most is when people say, “I should of” instead of, “I should have, or “I should’ve”
Cuz they’re hearing ‘ave, not have
I shu d’ave is how it sounds
Should with its silent u AND l
Have with its dropped h
English is graaaaate
@@YeshuaKingMessiah yeah, it’s made shorter by taking away ‘h’ and ‘a’ to make only ‘ve’
This is different because you can only see the error in writing.
Years ago I worked with some inexperienced lab technicians. My boss suggested temporarily sending them in pairs to another lab to gain on the job experience. I said "that's great! They can get some hands-on under their belt." 😳 There was a moment of silence then we each went on our way. I cringe whenever I think of it. Not an eggcorn, but thought I'd share 🥴
I said to my boss, "I don't smell as good as other people," when I really meant that my sense of smell isn't as sharp as the average person's. Although I realized it and corrected myself, it brought a laugh.
Lol hands on experience???? Do you not know what hands on mean
As a child, I thought I was pledging allegiance to the republic “for Richard Stands”. He got my loyalty until I was in 3rd grade.
"For witches stands," for the goth kids....
Ah yes, the mind control pledge of servitude they used to force all kids to recite when they didn't even know what they were saying 😂 I'm glad most schools have phased it out. It's silly for a number of reasons, not least of which being that you can't pledge allegiance if you don't know what those words are.
🤣🤣
I pledge a legion - to the flag - of the United Snakes of America - and to the public - for witches' stands - one nation - underdog - invisible - with liver, tea, and justice - f'rall.
_by the donzerly light_
In Japanese before kids can read kanji and they just write everything in kana, it's often believed the word for watermelon (スイカ), suika is sui-ka (水果) which is water-fruit. But it's actually su-ika (西瓜), meaning western-melon.
This just tickled my brain in so many different ways! 😁👍
Interesting. In China, the writing is the same, and xi-gua (西瓜) also means "watermelon", while shui-guo (水果) mean's fruit in general.
Score one for Chinese! Japan’s super-simple pronunciation seems like a blessing until you realize it’s a curse. Everything’s a farking homophone.
I just happened onto your channel and enjoy it immensely. I realize that this was posted ten months ago, but I hope you have a chance to read it. My husband learned English as his second language. He quite naturally had to make sense of phrases he hadn't been taught. Two in particular quite amaze me because they make a kind of sense. To him, the sentence, "The feeling is mutual," sounded like, "The feeling is neutral." He also thought that "pall bearers" carrying a coffin were "polar bears," because they could carry the weight.
My 7 year old daughter thought the game ”mine craft” was “mind craft” because you built worlds and it was a relaxing way to use your mind
Very intelligent child.
Lol cute
There's a really good example of an eggcorn that is probably so old and commonly used, that the original version is all but forgotten:
Parting shot, originally, is Parthian shot: named after the mounted Partian archers and their ability to turn around in their saddles and release an accurate arrow shot while retreating.
❤❤❤❤❤
I never heard of the original until today.
And I assume a horde of mounted Partian Archers had something to do with mounting something or someone at a party?
@@johnle6982 Not really. The Parthians were an empire that existed alongside the Romans, and were considered in many ways their arch nemesis as the Romans were never able to defeat them and suffered some horrific defeats trying (look for Historia Civilis' video about the battle of Carrhae for a chilling example). They weren't some wild horde, but a very ancient, well established state by the time the Romans came along.
@@johnle6982 I'm going with, that's the Mountain I will die on.😁
I recently found out I've been using a german eggcorn for many, many years:
the german word for the sound-producing lamella in the mouthpiece of woodwind instruments like the saxophone or clarinet is "Blättchen".
It's the diminutive of the word "Blatt" or "Rohrblatt" which translates to the english "reed".
Since the first time I heard someone mention it, I thought they said "Plättchen", which means "small sheet" and perfectly made sense to me, due to the shape of the reed: thin and flat (or german: "platt").
I thought I was correct for at least 20 years. Now I know I eggcorned myself.
Soft plosives indicate origin (or bringing up) in the South of Germany (or in Austria).
Rund um Berlin oder Hannover passieren solche "Weichheiten" seltener.
My mother is German. I never learned the language, just individual words, like body parts and such, when I was a kid. Took me a long time to realize that I was not learning the actual words, but made-up versions ending in the diminutive -chen. Glad I never embarrassed myself by sharing them with other Germans, though I may have misinformed some classmates.
@@luna-p Fingerchen, Ärmchen, Beinchen, Näschen, Penischen, ...
@@doubleT84 Lolol
My favourite was from a colleague who said he’d had a “fraudulent slip”. That made me laugh! Mondegreen I guess.
I use to work with a guy from Columbia who would often have a head cake. He thought it made sense because sometimes when you eat too much sugar, you can get a headache. He kept using the term after he was corrected, because it got people laughing.
Gardener Snake vs Garter Snake has been one for me ever since I was a child. Had no idea what a garter was, and since the snakes were harmless and found near our garden, it made sense to call them gardener snakes.
Even after learning what a garter was, I still prefer "garden snake". They have a lot more connection to gardens than garters.
Alternatively, guarder snake. Makes sense when you're a child and an adult's just introduced you to the concept of these snakes and their potential benefits to one's garden (eating pests).
It sounds like every version of the name makes sense, except the "real" one@@bearcat1868
Same.
Not an eggcorn. Mispronouncing actual words is NOT and eggcorn.
English was our second language. My mom would always say, "Are you killing me?" when we said something she didn't believe. We never corrected her and just laughed.
Hah, I use this as wordplay often, or another related version of "You have to be killing me!" instead of "You have to be kidding me!"
Omg. My mom has a million- anal retainer being a favorite.
2 darn cute
My nephew once said "are you losing my mind?"
My Mom too
I have an example of an eggcorn from swedish. In Sweden there is a phrase that says ”lägga rabarber på något” that can be translated into ”put rhubarb onto something”. The meaning of the phrase is to claim something entirely for one self. It is actually an eggcorn that orginated in the 19th century from the phrase ”lägga embargo på något” ie to put an embargo on something.
I believe the "Pennsylvania Dutch" comes from a misunderstanding of a German accent saying "we are Deutch" and also "Cajuns" a misunderstanding of a French accent saying "Arcadians"...so there are a couple that are not foreign language but lost translations. I loved this video!
My mother and I were joking around when she forgot someone's name and said she must have old timer's disease. I replied, "Thats OK, Mom, I have mentalpause." We both got a chuckle out of that. But actually, I don't think I've ever used any of those eggcorns. I've always read a lot, and when you see those common phrases in print, it's not as likely that you'll use them incorrectly.
I've been using old timer's disease intentionally for decades. The first person I heard it from was me. Indeed, I have never heard it anywhere else until this video. It's just such an appropriately sounding play on Alzheimer's. It just makes sense. By other favorite has been "bass ackwards" for "ass backwards". That being not an eggcorn, it is still demonstratabley funny in abuse of language.
That's exactly what I was thinking. I've most often learnt of these phrases in print, so I don't think I've miss heard any.
But I've seen old timers disease before and I thought it was a charming way of saying Alzheimers disease. I honestly hope it become a thing. 😂
@@dahasolomon7314 From the comments, it appears that it is not only a thing but so obviously humorous that it keeps being re-discovered.
@@johnfitzgerald8879 I think 'bass ackwards' is categorised as a Spoonerism.
Like when I use "shaking a tower" for 'taking a shower'. It even works in the past tense. I shook a tower.
When your brain works faster than language you can get bored and start messing up the way you say things on "porpoise". I read a lot too so much of my word learning comes from the printed page. It makes it so that I don't have egg corns but there are complicated or borrowed words from other languages that I always said wrong in my head until I heard it spoken out loud. "deus ex machina" would be an example of that. I assumed the "i" would be the French i sound. Nope.
I remember reading in Reader's Digest many years ago about a woman who moved to the New York City/New Jersey area and began copying a phrase she heard locals saying about something expensive costing 'a nominal egg'. She said it for quite a while before it hit her one day. What they were saying was 'an arm and a leg' with the strong regional accent.
I grew up in that area and can confirm if I say "an arm and a leg" in my nana's accent (which is heavier than mine) it sounds just like "a nominal egg." What a great one!
lol. That was good!
Is it still an eggcorn if I use the wrong phrase deliberately? For example, I will refer to “old timer’s disease” deliberately when speaking with people who know that I know that the correct term is “Alzheimer’s disease” when I want to reinforce in-group bonding by using a shared witticism. (Yes, I realize that you may judge me a terrible person for making fun of other’s honest mistakes, and I won’t attempt to defend my behavior here.)
Ironically eggs nowadays do cost an arm and a leg
@@CiroMastino Oh, but you missed that one by a few weeks. The prices came back down already.
People used to say "If you think [you are going to do that in my house], you've got another think coming." Now people started saying "another thing coming". I liked the old way better.
The last time i heard someone say that I asked them, "what thing do I have coming?" They looked like they'd been slapped and said, "Huh?" I said, "You said, 'If that's what you think then you've got another thing coming.' So I was wondering what thing do I have coming?" When they realized they didn't even know what it meant, I kindly said, "I believe what you meant to say was that I have another "think" coming."
The whole "thing" thing makes no sense whatsoever.
@@misfitstranger It makes sense if you think about things a little more...
Best in-video ad ever! An eggcorn I come across most often is, "Try a different tact," to mean, "Try a different _way_ ." Having sailed, I learned that a *Tack* is a sailing term meaning, "direction, or, way." I wondered if you really would use one that I've been using, because I usually flinch inside when I hear them. I don't correct people, but it's tempting, thus the internal flinch. Yet I've been saying, "born to the Manor" all these years, even though I own and have read multiple copies of Hamlet. It just never clicked with me that this is the source, so my eyes must have skipped over it each time I read it
I knew a guy that was sick all the time, but it was psycho-systematic. He also dropped his jar of cherries once and smashed it to figurines but didn’t get mad. My hand’s off to him!
Sometimes there are deliberate and clever malapropisms, particularly in marketing:- I cannot name the camping store, it may no longer exists, but their winter sale ad is legendary:-
“Now is the winter of our discount tents”
I love that, but I'm pretty sure an intentional malapropism is really just a pun.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
If the store no longer exists, would that make the slogan past tents?
@@FitzyCify, oh you’re GOOOOD 😂😂
Yeah, a lot of them come from slogans, word play or jokes.
Reminds me of an old joke:
A man is talking to his therapist. “Hey Doc, i keep having this recurring dream, I’m a wigwam I’m a tepee I’m a wigwam I’m a tepee I’m a wigwam I’m a tepee!
Therapist say, “relax, you’re two tents.”
I always wondered why Sting sang “I’m a pool hall ace, every breath you take “. 😂
I always thought he also said every val you break, and I could never figure out what that meant 😄
A female acquaintance would not believe me when loudly singing, "I'm just sitting here nude" (rather than the correct words, "I'm just second hand news".
@@DanceintheRaine666I thought it was “I’m your second hand dude!” Thank you for clarifying!!
Wrong video.
@@GalaxyTheSnailTurdevery vow you break
A mondegreen here: When I was in elementary school, for many years I pledged allegiance to the flag and to the "republic for widget stands."
In the old Partridge in a Pear tree carol, the Americans completely lost the meaning of ‘four colly birds’ by substituting the words ‘calling birds’. The original song used the word “colly” to mean sooty black (black birds), we get the words coal and colliery from the same root.
Thank you for explaining that. Since I was a kid I wondered what four "calling" birds meant. And the derivation of coal and collier are interesting too.
@@DarqJestor Etymology is a fascinating subject. The Chambers dictionary of Etymology is a great starting place 😄
@@markkettlewell7441 Thanks so much. It does sound quite fascinating. I will definitely check it out. 🙂
That's fascinating. Thanks for pointing it out.
Most modern versions also have "Five golden rings" which most likely is a mishearing of another bird the "goldring" which actually fits the bird theme of those verses.
As a kid in Germany, I misheard the word for petrol station (“Tankstelle” = “fill-up place”) as “Stankstelle” (= “stink place”), which, not having a concept for filling up a tank but smelling petrol vapours, made a lot more sense to me
There's a chain of gas (petrol) stations in Idaho called Stinker.
That's a funny one you'd get away with- if humour existed in Germany.
And today I learned that "stank" isn't just a recent slang for smelling really bad, but from German.
On a very similar note, in India, a petrol station is most commonly called "Petrol bunk". It's weird because they don't call it that anywhere else. The closest term used elsewhere is "Petrol pump". It was probably an eggcorn, that later became folk etymology (its even in dictionaries now)
That's kind of insane , I'm an American guy who has had The Corries as one of my favorite bands since I was a teen. I think this is the first time I've ever seen anything related to Ronnie shown in a video that I was watching that wasn't directly related to their music.
30 years ago someone corrected me for saying "mute point" and "jerry rigged". I have had many interesting conversations with others regarding Eggcorns since. Occasionally, some can be quite stubborn when challenged with "moot point" and "jury rigged" to the point of anger.=)
Jury rigged and jerry-rigged are two diff things
Jerry is a slur for Germans
So German rigged (best could do, but not done that well)
@@YeshuaKingMessiah i believe you are correct. Was used in WWII. I use Jerry Rigged…I think that one changed and now is the more common phrase.
A former coworker of my mother's once described a movie she had recently seen as having too much "sexual in-the-window" instead of "sexual innuendo". My mom, sisters, and I still say it incorrectly for laughs👍
I love this. My mother did this type of thing so often. My sister and myself also have this trait of turning words inside out and backwards. To have my mom, sister and myself engaged in a conversation almost sounded like another language besides English. All three of us would not miss a beat and understand everything. Dad would have to leave the room. Over whelming to a word purist.
This should be called a haycorn. The wrong form doesn't make much sense.
Sexual in-the-window?
So you've been to Amsterdam as well I see.
Hope you saw the Holy Stroopwafel while you were there.
@@andraspongracz5996 In the Netherlands you can see women in windows. It's at the Red Light District.
Now that's sexual in-the-window
sexxual in-your-endo
My mom moved from France, she was familiar with the expression, "Penny for your thoughts," so when she heard, "I don't give a damn", she mistook it as, "I don't give a dime." It took her years to realize the mistake, but I must admit I like the "dime" version more.
I hope you gave her your two cents worth when explaining it to her! 😊
I could see someone intentionally saying "I don't give a dime" to avoid saying a "swear word".
@@cydkriletich6538Because people put their two cents in, but it’s only a penny for your thoughts, I’ve always wondered who is making that one cent of profit.
That works! 😊
Was this prefaced with "Frankly, my dear"? ;-)
I'm American, and I love your English accent and voice. I could listen to that all day.
My favorite would be when Morty asks Rick, "wait, have you been saying 'for granite' this whole time". Fans of Rick and Morty will know...
In German, songs with lyrics that are often misheard are called "Agathe Bauer" songs. The story is that someone had called a radio station requesting the song about "Agathe Bauer". The song that the person actually wanted to hear was "The Power" by Snap, which has the lyrics "I've got the power" in it. Another example is "Anneliese Braun"; which is supposed to be "All the leaves are brown" from "California dreaming" by the Mamas and the Papas.
Reminds me of the Mexican Radio station one. The guy requests "Esos son Reebok o son Nike" (literally "are those Reebok or Nike). Turns out he was requesting. "This is the rhythm of the night" by the Eurythmics
Hau auf die Leberwurst- Hope of deliverance. :)
I want Annalise Braun to be my drag name.
There are two books about those misheard lyrics. Though the books have pretty unfortunate titles... de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_wei%C3%9Fe_Neger_Wumbaba
these two came also to my mind as soon as he started talking about that.
I had a chuckle when I overheard two people talking about their past woes and they both agreed that "it was all water under the fridge". I've used it a few times since to get a bit of a laugh. Where would we be without occasionally using our malapropisms for their comic "affect"
Yeah, you know, like when you drop an ice cube and can't be bothered picking it up so you just kick it under there where it melts into a puddle you neither notice nor care about.
😂 that's brilliant, definitely adding it to my vernacular
Also an example of catachresis - misuse of grammar for comic effect. My favourite of those being Interplod from Only Fools and Horses. It will never be Interpol for me ever again.
I use "take it for granite" regularly for the humor value. Not to mention that I also regularly refer to a thing called "the interwebs" ;)
@@oldsguy354 It's a deep-seeded problem.
I love how you integrated the sponsor with the subject of the video. Very well done.
"I think he received his just dessert."
Means, "I think he got what he earned &/or deserves in the end."
It is usually said sarcastically.
A child I babysat long ago, asked me to polish her finger tails and toe tails. “Nails were in wood, but tails are on the end of things”…The child was three years old when she explained this brilliant eggcorn.
As I read this comment, I puzzled over it. I had subconsciously converted tails to nails before the explanation. So the explanation was completely out of context. A nonsequitor.
The logic of toddlers can really make you question your assumptions sometimes.
Reminds me of my son calling a sidewalk a sideblock since the squares of cement appeared to be blocks lining the side of a driveway or lawn.
Cute but not an eggcorn. Thats just a child not pronouncing a word.
@mackdeen7021 if you read it properly , it makes sense. Fingernails are at the end of fingers and toenails are at the ends of toes, the tail ends if you will.
A friend of mine was diagnosed with "prostrate" cancer but he stood up and it went away.
My favorite- that was not really wrong, it just looked funny on the sign- was a local State Farm insurance agent's business here in San Diego called "Pro State Farm"... just cracked me up that there was a farm for prostates...
@@tjchad1Let angels prostate fall...
I have heard some people, when talking about cold weather, refer to the "windshield factor" when they mean wind chill.
I just heard a lawyer for an ex-POTUS/felon call something "petty ante." I don't think at that level of commitment that this card game will ever end.
😂😂😂
Not really a foreign egg corn but I met someone from Colombia a couple of years ago. His English was pretty good but still learning. He told me that up until recently he thought our expression when leaving was “Happy Good day” instead of “have a good day” which, if you think about it makes sense because we have other sentiments that we express with “happy” e.g. Happy Birthday! Happy anniversary! Happy Mother’s Day! Etc. I thought it was pretty cute.
I like it !
Happy good day to you !
I’m totally going to start using that phrase. I love it. Happy good day to you!
@@habibakamel happy good day to you
Let's adopt it
I need this to be an actual phrase in the English language. It sounds super sweet! Happy good day!
I grew up with furniture made of iron rods welded together. For years, I thought it was called 'rod iron' furniture; 'wrought iron' made sense when I ran across it, but 'rod iron' fit my experience just fine.
In most cases, "wrought iron" is actually steel. Iron is an element, and steel is made
mostly of iron. But things that are made (for all purposes) of just iron are very, very
rare. Even cast iron has a lot of carbon mixed with the iron. More carbon, even, than
steel would have. Long story, I know.
One of my favorites comes from "The Sopranos" when Christopher describes a plan to befuddle another crime family as "sowing dysentery in the ranks." For the record, where I grew up in rural SW Virginia, everyone said "buck naked." My city-girl spouse from St. Louis, however, insists it was universally "butt naked" where she grew up. And as they say at the boat-repair shop, "Any part in a storm."
Thank you for addressing “take it for granted”
Sorry if this one has already been mentioned, but my favorite eggcorn was unknowingly exposed by the comedian Sean Jordan when he stated on a podcast that one should "throw that cosh right into the wind". Pretty funny reaction when his cohosts went from complete confusion to realizing that he had spent his entire life thinking that risk takers were "throwing cosh into the wind".
That's delicious! Thanks for that story.
hello fellow namenheimer
They do sort of mean the same thing.
I would have to hear him say it, but are you sure this wasn't an intentional mis-speak? Like, when the kids say "rizz" as short for charisma? Adding "that" can make you sound folksy. "Throw that cosh to the wind, my dawg."
As a non-native English speaker, I was proud to notice that I have been using all of these correctly. But being a non-native speaker might have actually helped, because a lot of the English expressions I've learned have come through reading literature rather than growing up hearing them in everyday conversation.
Wait u cin lern stuf from readin?
It's nothing to do with not being a native speaker, and all to do with reading. There's no confusion when reading.
Also a non-native speaker. I'm your typical grammar nazi, besserwisser, and no-fun-at-parties guy, according to the interwebs. So I really try my best not to point things out nowadays. And I believe I'm actually quite funny IRL, despite this flaw. But I think that my spelling OCD actually gets worse when I spot native English speakers making these "mistakes". Like, I try so hard to master this language, yet I can't trust the knowledge of the people speaking it, or something. But as you and @matthewbartsh9167 suggest, I think it all has to do with reading, i.e. literacy.
Meaning, I guess, I don't agree with Geoff Pullum (in the video). I _do_ think this has to do with illiteracy. That is, not reading enough books or novels or whatnot to sufficiently support your use of the language. Although at the same time, I definitely agree it has nothing to do with stupidity per se, and I can see the imaginative aspects of coming up with... personal interpretations.
Yes! Read broadly and frequently 😊
I used to think it was “peak your interest” when it’s “pique your interest.” Found a whole egg corn database to verify that it was an egg corn that I’ve used.
The first time I heard “old timers disease” was when my now adult daughter was 5 or 6. She was in a summer YMCA program. Just over the fence around the building lived an elderly lady who occasionally yelled at the kids. The staff told the kids the lady didn’t know what she was doing because she had Alzheimer’s disease and explained that this happens to some people when they grow old.
One day when I was dropping my daughter off at the Y she told me we shouldn’t get mad about the mean lady next door because she has old timers disease. I thought that was a very clever way to understand what they told her about the lady.
I have a friend who insists that to withhold strategic information is to not "tip your hat". I've explained that the phrase is "Don't tip your hand" - as in "don't let anyone see your cards" in Poker - but she is positive that tipping your hat means to give away a secret. Of course, if you're hiding a large bald spot beneath your hat, she's absolutely correct.
LOL< since I only heard it used a few times (and yes too many people seem to be saying "tipping hats"), I started wondering if it was about saluting the wrong people?
(You know: to pay respect to a person of higher rank by touching the headgear/ because of course that comes form the way older tradition of taking off your hat or cap entirely.)
I've heard both. Tip my hat I've heard as "I tip my hat to you". Tipping ones hat is a show of acknowledgement. In my rural community it is as common as a wave or even a nod as we pass one another on the road. The tip your hand referring to not share information as you used it. I tip my hat to you for sharing!
The phrase I usually hear is, "Don't show your hand."
@@bsteven885 don't show your hat
If she doesn't want to tip her hand, she should keep her cards close to the chest and not show her ace in the hold.
In Danish we have the expression "Den tid, den sorg" which translates to "That time. that grief" basically meaning "We'll worry about that later, when it's relevant". The eggcorn of that is "Den tid den sover" translating to "That time is sleeping". It is very common.
Excellent
@@RobWords eggcellent*
"Den tid den sover"... Det synes jeg aldrig jeg har hørt... Meget interessant
Heller ikke mig
Ok. That ad of yours was THE most clever way to keep an audience, hilarious and very well done!
In Japan, they actually have a well-established tradition (over a thousand years?) of using similar-sounding-but-unrelated Chinese characters to fit the sounds of originally-Japanese phrases; it's called até-ji (当て字), or "assigning characters."
Good dictionaries here will usually tell you if the Chinese characters people use to write some modern Japanese expressions are actually "até-ji" ones; i.e. that these characters actually have no relation to the original Japanese expression, and were only assigned based on the fact that they sounded suitable enough, and also kind of made sense in the way egg-corns do.
One common example of these "até-ji" is the Japanese word for "anyway" ("tonikaku"), commonly written as "horns on a rabbit" (兎に角) based on the sounds "to" and "kaku" sounding like "rabbit" and "horns", even though the original Japanese expression had nothing to do with horns or rabbits.
This "horns on a rabbit" might have been somehow connected to the (real) Chinese-based expression "legs on a snake" ("dasoku," 蛇足), which means to add useless explanations to something that is already clear (as "anyway" can also be kind of used in a similar way)?
But there must be hundreds more of these "até-ji" words in common daily use here: egg-corns which acquired their pedigree of respectability through popular use over the centuries!
Thank you! This is fascinating
Just a day after watching this wonderful video, my wife received a little nugget in a work document. "... a last stitch effort." We think it fits! Thanks for the videos!
Works beautifully if you are a knitter/crocheter/sewist!
In Germany there is a term for this in relation to music. Many (most?) songs that we hear in the radio are sung in English but most people don't speak English well enough to understand it. So as kids we sang to the songs in a phonetical way - as we heard it. One girl heard the song "I got the power" and not speaking any English she heard "Agate Bauer" which is a first name and a surname. This annectode became a phenomenon and people started to reveil the misunderstandings they had when they weren't speaking English yet. This series is called "Agathe Bauer songs). You'll find some here on youtube - there's always the English original and the German version that people understood. Fore example: "all my feelings grow" = "Oma fiel ins Klo" = "Grandma fell into the toilet".
This also happens in other languages, for example Rihanna in China is known as the queen of Shandong. in her song "we found love", it sounds like "wei fang de ai" which sounds like "weifang", a place in china, and the character for "love". Then she released another song called "where have you been", becoming "weihan youbing", or pancake from weihan, another city in shandong.
There's another song lyric people in Germany understand the false way : "all the leaves are brown" is turning to "Anneliese Braun" - also a female Name in Germany
But there are eggcorns in Germany too... "zum Beispiel" that means "for example" turned into "zum Bleistift" which means "to the pencil" 🙂... but why???
Thanks, I'll definitely enjoy falling down this rabbit hole. (I just thought, "Wait, is "rabbit hole" an eggcorn?")
@@marcussuft7837Pretty sure "zum Bleistift" is used ironically. At least I use it that way. So it's not that people who use "zum Bleistift" don't know that the correct phrase would be "zum Beispiel", but that people deliberately use a different, but funnier phrase.
@@MrJeffrey938 No, "rabbit hole" is a literary allusion to Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."
I have one of such eggcorns in French. A guy who believed "laine de verre" (glasswool) was "laine de Nevers" (a city in the center of France), as in his dialect Nevers was said "n'ver", so that in normal speech "laine de N'ver" sounds remarkably similar to "laine de verre".
Where I come from it's common when presented with an untidy mess to say "it looks like a bomb's hit it!". When I was little I always thought my mum and nan were calling my room a "bomb city" (not even a "bombed city", which would be tragic but make more sense). It still evoked the image of a place thrown into chaos by a destructive force (me).
One I found myself using for years is "kitten kaboodle", which seemed delightful but was, in reality, "kit and kaboodle", a type of sewing kit. I'm let down that kittens are not somehow at the center of it.
As a kid I thought that is what you used to take your cat to the vet.
Woah I didn’t know this one, that’s cool to know
Til
There is a German phrase with the same meaning: „mit Kind und Kobold“ … which looks a great deal like "kit and kaboodle."
The German phrase translated literally to "with kid and helper-house-spirit." A „Kobold“ was something like the Scandinavian nisse: helpful hidden-folk that would do little tasks if you were good to them and Followed the Rule [of the supernatural], but would play pranks on you if you were unkind to them.
So to leave „mit Kind und Kobold“ meant that you were not only taking everything _and_ the kitchen sink, you were clearing out with the non-physical members of the house too!
Well if you need a phrase for mad I have a cat one for you "shitting kittens"(Man Tom is going to be shitting kittens when he finds out.) I dont think it came from anywhere else. But its also funny 😂😂😂😂. And while its not got cat in the phrase it- "Bitter shitbox"(Karen is such a bitter shitbox" kinda implies a litterbox in my mind. Ive been using both for years.
The eggcorn that gets my goat is when people write (you can't tell when spoken), "That peaked my interest.".
Yeah I think that totally counts!
Good one!
Brilliant ...that one gets me too
why what should it be ?
@@Sam_Green____4114 I think it should be piqued instead of peaked
I was able to find a funny eggcorns in Russian. ‘Скрепя сердце’ (toughening the heart) -> ‘скрипя сердцем’ (with screeching heart). Is used when you’re doing something you don’t really want to do.
You got me to listen all the way thru the ad. Well done, and clever.
I, too, thought it was "free reign." Interesting video.
When I was a waitress, I worked with a guy that was so confused because his customer asked for “camel milk tea”. I still crack up about it. She was asking for camomile tea! This brought up someone else thinking spiders where called “deadly long legs” instead of “daddy long legs.”
bone apple tea
😂
I used to call those spiders "dandy long legs."
I waitresses at a Greek restaurant and owner friends would ask for fresh milk when asked if they wanted cream with their coffee
@@jennywoody1655I don't get it.
I didn't find any egg corns that I use, but I think I'll start using one. I love the "French Benefits," It sounds risque and exotic.
Hi, I'm a french Canadian so I don't know if that's something the french say but here it is.
In Quebec, there is an expression " de mal en pis " that's use when a bad situation keeps getting worse, word for word it would translate to "from bad to even worse". Well there's a lot of people that use " de mal en pire " where here it would translate word for word to " from bad to THE worst ", because " pis " is the opposite of "mieux" which translate to good and "pire" is the opposite of "meilleur" which translate to best. A little exemple here would be :
Comment va la santé de Jean ? (How's John health ?)
Oh tu sais, ca va de mal en pis. (It's bad but it's worsening, you know.)
Where is you use the EGGCORN which would replace "mal en pis" for "mal en pire" it would translate to : It's bad and going towards the worst, you know.
You can see that the sentiment is the same, and it kinda sound the same, the problem is with the word "pis" that is not commonly used in modern french so contextualy people thought that they just didn't hear the "re" of pire, and started saying "de mal en pire".
The phrase 'Old Timer's Disease' was always used - by the folks I knew - as a light hearted variant (usually when teasing someone) to avoid talking about an actual disease. I imagine a few of these started out as fun wordplay.
When I was 5, I got in a lot of trouble for this one, because I was "being rude."
Yes, I have heard it just as a joking reference to the kinds of things us old folks regularly experience, not the actual disease. I’m reminded of the lady whose pastor asked if she ever thought about the hereafter. “Yes,” she said, “every day. I’ll come into a room and wonder, ‘what did I come in here after.’”
If you like long enough, you can relate to that.
I imagine you are right, wordplay is pretty common and people are very prone to using phrases they don't fully understand.
...Actually, this has a much more sinister relative now that I consider it, it's related to how presenting ironic opinions inevitably leads to dumb people not realizing you were being ironic and gradually attracting people who earnestly believe it. Think flat eartherism. In the history of the modern movement, which started in the 50s IIRC, it was obviously extremely fringe but there were a decent amount of people who embraced it ironically because it was so silly. It wasn't until the 2000s and the explosion of social media and youtube that we started seeing increasing numbers of people ACTUALLY believing that nonsense. Another example would be how the reddit subreddit "The Donald" was originally a joke subreddit because Trump was such a joke candidate and yet, for anyone who has the misfortune of interacting with American politics, we all know how that spiraled out of control eventually.
It's a shame, because being ironic is a type of humor I appreciate and feel drawn to, but it needs to be used responsibly. Luckily, wordplay is much lower stakes and we can just laugh a little at people who are unfortunately fooled into sounding a little silly without any problems.
@@steve-4045My Grandma is always going on about her mean friend Arthur. Arthur Ritus
This portion of the video reminded me of a potential Japanese candidate: aruchūhaimzu (アル中ハイマズ), a decades‐old coining for drinking oneself blotto. The starting point was アル中, a typically Japanese shortening of arukōru chūdoku (アルコール中毒, literally "alcohol addiction.")
I had to write "potential candidate" because my Japanese drinking buddies used it more or less deliberately to equate drunken stupor with the "brain frog" of Alzheimer's.
BTW, decades ago, the term in vogue was chihoshō (地保証, dementia), but the katakana version of アルツハイマー has long taken over.
I have an example of an eggcorn from Italian. The phrase "d'alto bordo" means "high-class" or "high-profile". Its literal translation is "from the high side (of the ship)". The idea is that the higher your cabin was on the ship, the higher your prestige. However, because of the obscureness and historical distance of the expression, people often mistakenly say "d'alto borgo" instead, meaning "from a high(-class) borough/village".
That’s really interesting. Love this kind of insight
Lol! I used to always think the words to the song is “there’s a bathroom on the right” instead of “there’s a bad moon on the rise…”
Every time I am done dealing with my niece, I feel like I have post dramatic stress disorder. That girl is over the top dramatic and she stresses me out, so I am adopting that one, just for her. And maybe my sister, too.
I once had a student email me and ask for the copy of the rule brick for an assignment. I thought it was a clever eggcorn for rubric - a rubric does sort of have the rules for an assignment and sometimes the chart format is brick shaped. I think a lot of eggcorns happen because people speak more than they read, especially casual speech that is more idiomatic.
This makes sense especially because i read a LOT as a kid and recognized all the eggcorns in the video except for damp squib (maybe a dialect thing? I'm very American) as incorrect.
@@rubynkitchen8730Same here, I never heard or saw that phrase before, but I recognized everything else
😂rule brick… that’s hilarious
One I remember using as a child was "a pigment of my imagination." Given my ability to visualize in great detail with fine color differentiations and the fact that painting is a way of creating worlds where there was blankness before, it made perfect sense that people used the word for coloring agents to discuss imagination. Whereas I knew what a fig was and what a mint was, but had never heard the word "figment" outside of the phrase about imagination, so it wasn't until a few adults were condescendingly laughing about my use of "pigment" without explaining what the word was that I realized I'd been saying it wrong.
I'm pretty sure I've used "a fragment of my imagination" when trying to remember "figment". 😅
hah! this reminds me of when I thought "pain in the neck" was "paint in the neck".
Not a very funny mistake, except that I have vivid memories of just staring at these paint cans in my house, just pondering over the expression for long periods of time. I knew what it meant, just couldn't figure out what the hell paint had to do with it.
This went on for years! I don't think it counts as an eggcorn, though.
Those kinds of experiences - adults laughing w/o explaining to the kid - were just shy of traumatic for me as a kid. As an adult, I can understand what was going on, but as a child, it was just people laughing at me, which I read as disapproval. Maybe I was just over-sensitive as a kid.
@@elainebelzDetroit Oh, it was definitely traumatic for me. the message I got was worth laughing at, but not worth teaching the phrase that wouldn't set me up to be teased or discounted later. They probably thought I was over-sensitive, by which they meant I was choosing not to deal with my emotions. The truth was that I was an undiagnosed autistic, my nervous system is LITERALLY more sensitive than most. I was dealing with my emotions the best I could, but no one had thought to teach me how to manage social rejection that registered as literal physical pain.
I have decided that most of society is actually under-sensitive, and they deal with that deficit by berating those who pick up on the trends and details and subtleties they miss.
purple really is a pigment of the imagination - it does not exist as a monochromatic colour
“At your beck and call.”
“At your beckoning call.”
You finally got me with "just deserts!" Phew. It finally makes sense.
Yep, that's the one that got me!