Wordie: Eggcorn: Comments

Comment by sionnach, about 1 month ago

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 10:47:34 +0000

Comment by immerbeta, about 1 month ago

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 08:13:24 +0000

In September 2003, Mark Liberman reported (Egg corns: folk etymology, malapropism, mondegreen, ???) an incorrect yet particularly suggestive creation: someone had written “egg corn” instead of “acorn”. It turned out that there was no established label for this type of non-standard reshaping. Erroneous as it may be, the substitution involved more than just ignorance: an acorn is more or less shaped like an egg; and it is a seed, just like grains of corn. So if you don’t know how acorn is spelled, egg corn actually makes sense.

quote from the Eggcorn database

Comment by Treeseed, 11 months ago

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 17:04:41 +0000

Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

noun
Etymology: Middle English nekename additional name, alteration (resulting from misdivision of an ekename) of ekename, from eke eke, also + name name
Date: 15th century
1 : a usually descriptive name given instead of or in addition to the one belonging to a person, place, or thing
2 : a familiar form of a proper name (as of a person or a city)