For the seemingly never-ending thread, a reader sends the above hathetic spelling for colitas – Mexican slang for marijuana buds: I happen to be karaoking tonight in Korea Town for a friend’s birthday and we happened on what I think is a brilliant new subgenre: the karaoke eggcorn! Of course, we couldn’t let that go without thinking … Continue reading Busted With An Eggcorn, Ctd
The Dish thread that keeps on giving: As a tyke in the 1940s, I often heard grownups talking about a very bad foreign man named – unless my ears deceived me – Hair Hitler. I had seen newsreel footage of this fidgety fellow with his unruly mop flopping about, so it never occurred to me … Continue reading Busted With An Eggcorn, Ctd
We could all use some more of these right now: In case the Dish doesn’t go ahead, I have an eggcorn to share. My wife and I both work, so we have a nanny for our two kids. We live in SE Asia, and our nanny speaks English fairly well, but it’s her second language. Instead of belly-button, … Continue reading Busted With An Eggcorn, Ctd
Just when we thought the thread was over: I grew up visiting a cabin in the Sierra that my grandfather built after WW2, when my dad was little. Many of the stories about the cabin involved a Scandinavian journeyman carpenter they hired to help build it. Because of this, for much longer than I care … Continue reading Busted With An Eggcorn, Ctd
This is probably the last of the mega popular thread. A reader sends the above image: Am I too late for eggcorns? One of Boston’s historic burying grounds is Copp’s Hill Burying Ground, named for the family of William Copp, who once owned the land. Several maps, including this one from 1776, label it “Corpse Hill” instead. Perfectly … Continue reading Busted With An Eggcorn, Ctd
Another day, another batch: When my daughter was four, I asked her to go get me a beer (as it happens, a Budweiser) from the refrigerator. She was happy to make her dad happy and when she returned she said, “Here’s your buzzwater, Dad.” Another tosses in a mondegreen: For years, my favorite beer advertisement … Continue reading Busted With An Eggcorn, Ctd
The Dish thread that won’t quit: My twenty-four-year-old daughter has Down syndrome. While she has plenty to say and can be understood by most people, her speech sometimes takes some interesting twists and turns. She does her own laundry, often when I’m not at home. Occasionally a sock or something else falls into the laundry … Continue reading Busted With An Eggcorn, Ctd
Quality eggcorns from readers keep coming in. One sends the above screenshot: A strangely intriguing but short-lived Internet meme/mystery meets up with an eggcorn of “TV day-view”, as opposed to “TV debut”, by one of the solvers of the mystery. It’s also strange how someone’s random reaction on TV can become the focus of millions of investigators. I have to admit, … Continue reading Busted With An Eggcorn, Ctd
More tumble in: An example of an eggcorn has stayed alive in my memory for many years. A coworker, a smart college student, referred to an injury as having left whelps on his arm. Unable to resist, I started my version of canine howling. He quickly realized he was using the wrong term and we would … Continue reading Busted With An Eggcorn, Ctd
This fun reader thread is a good way to balance out the heavy one on corporal punishment and also a prime example of the collective wit of our readership. A reminder of what an eggcorn is: “a word or phrase that results from a mishearing or misinterpretation of another, an element of the original being substituted for one that sounds … Continue reading The Best Threads Of 2014: “Busted With An Eggcorn”
The Dish 