Ann’s blog about thyme today rattled my chain – my punster chain, that is. I can barely restrain myself from sharing the secret of how to tell an herb gardener from a vegetable gardener (herb gardeners always seem to have thyme on their hands). You may recall that in a previous Andy’s Corner I confessed to having chronic CPD:
…my brain seems to be hardwired to look for opportunities to pun. It is more than an obsession; it is who I am. Surely there is a clinical term for this affliction … let’s call it CPD (Compulsive Pun Disorder). For those of us with this condition, nothing is more satisfying than eliciting a laugh (or, second best, a groan). Indifference, of course, is hell.
Unfortunately, indifference to my puns seems to be at an all-thyme high. Clearly it’s thyme to take a thyme-out from punning and find some other wordplay mode that can bolster my self-image. But where can a has-been punster turn?
The answer to that question came to me via a recent email from David in Albuquerque, a BigLittleMeals guest blogger and purveyor of eccentric knowledge. He pointed me to another form of word play that I’d never heard of, even though it unwittingly has been a part Andy’s Corner since our blog’s inception.
David was referring to what is known as eggcorns. According to Merriam-Webster an eggcorn is the “expression of a plausible mishearing of a standard term.” In other words, it’s a “slip of the ear.” While a pun is intentional an eggcorn may be an unintentionally clever misinterpretation of a word or phrase. “For all intents and purposes” is often misheard as “for all intensive purposes.” Or, to bring time back into the conversation, instead of biding one’s time, you may have heard it as biting one’s time. I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit that for years I thought that Mary’s little lamb had fleas white as snow and that older folks could get “old timers disease.”
The term “eggcorn” is a relative newcomer to the wordplay world. It was coined in 2003 by Geoffrey Pullum, Professor Emeritus at the University of Edinburgh, after he noticed that some folks misheard acorns as eggcorns. Pullum has published scholarly works dealing with such things as phonology, morphology, semantics, pragmatics, computational linguistics, and philosophy of language. Surely he must know what he’s talking about regarding what we’re talking about!
So what eggcorn unwittingly has been a part of our blog? You’ll find it in the heading of the index page for Andy’s Corner:
The correct version is “where Andy has free rein” – as in freeing a horse from its reins. If it were written “where Andy has free reign” it would be a eggcorn. I should note that Ann, who grew up riding horses, wrote this introduction. I didn’t ask if she knew which version is correct.
Like so many things, once you start looking for eggcorns you see them everywhere. I never would have imagined the vast number words or phrases in our language that could easily cause a slip of the ear. The web is crawling with examples. Take for instance the 2015 NPR post entitled Here Are 100 ‘Eggcorns’ That We Say Pass Mustard.
I’ve spent way too much time on line finding examples of eggcorns and chuckling to myself. So, to peak your interest I’m sharing some of the eggcorns that tickled my fanny.
“peak one’s interest” instead of “pique one’s interest”
“in the mist of” instead of “in the midst of”
“nip it in the butt” instead of “nip it in the bud”
“take it for granite” instead of “take it for granted “
“lesser of two equals” instead of “lesser of two evils”
“bold-faced liar” instead of “bald-faced liar.”
“scandally clad” instead of “scantily clad”
“butt naked” instead of “buck naked”
“pawn off” instead of “palm off.”
“cold slaw” instead of “coleslaw”
“tough road to hoe” instead of “tough row to hoe”
“jerry rigged” instead of “jury rigged”
“all for not” instead of “all for naught”
“anchors away” instead of “anchors aweigh”
“mute point” instead of “moot point”
“for all intensive purposes” instead of “for all intents and purposes.”
“escape goat” instead of “scapegoat,”
I can’t end this post without mentioning the eggcorn that tickled my fanny the most – “crap chute” instead of “crapshoot” (not to be confused with “shooting the s___”). According to Idiom Schmidiom, this eggcorn is grounded in fact. Evidently, castles in the 14th century, lacking indoor plumbing, were equipped with latrines (called Garderobes) “that consisted of a raised area and hole, with a discharge chute that lead directly to the exterior wall of the castle. The excrement would leave the latrine and exit outside via this chute.”
In retrospect, my hope that eggcorn wordplay could possibly cure my Compulsive Pun Disorder didn’t come to truition. For all intensive purposes these newfangled eggcorns have only increased my passion for the oldfangled pun. But that won’t keep me from enjoying good eggcorns when I see them.
Omg! BALD faced liar??? My world has changed.
For the better, I trust.
This is very similar to a Mondegreen, which is mostly in the context of misheard song lyrics, e.g., “Excuse me while I kiss this guy” from Purple Haze. My own contribution to this category was from The Doors – Light my Fire, where instead of the line “and our love become a funeral pyre” I heard “and I’d love to come if you umpire”
Interesting! I wonder of my hearing of Mary’s little lamb with “fleas” as white as snow is a Mondegreen rather than an eggcorn. Either way, it makes for a good chuckle.
Ah, the crap chute. As you may also know, immersion in water was thought unhealthy in that era. Laundering elaborate finery and bathing were excruciatingly infrequent. The gentry were afflicted not only by one another’s odors but also by parasitical vermin, not least, lice. Toxic ammoniacal vapors ascended the chutes and I am given to understand the gentry would routinely hang their pestilent-ridden garments over the holes overnight as a means of killing some of the vermin, though I cannot imagine this was too helpful with the odors. A fascinating chapter on the subject appears in Bill Bryson’s book, At Home. I heartedly recommend it to anyone interested in crap chutes, though I don’t recall that Bryson used that exact term.
Thanks for the colorful added information. I had read that the “latrines” were called “gauderobes” because clothing was sometime kept in them, but didn’t get to the part explaining why garments were stored there. I’ve added Bill Bryson’s book to my reading list.