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Going to Hell in a Hen Basket
An illustrated Dictionary of Modern Malapropisms
By Robert Alden Rubin Flatiron Books
Copyright © 2015 Robert Alden Rubin
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-250-06628-2
INTRODUCTION
which came first, the chicken or the eggcorn?
The first published account of an eggcorn seen in the wild appeared September 23, 2003, as a note by the linguist Mark Liberman in Language Log, a blog devoted to our English language and language in general. One of Liberman's correspondents had asked about a writer who used the phrase egg corn when acorn was meant. Another contributor to Language Log, the linguist Geoffrey Pullum, then proposed the term eggcorn to describe that sort of mistake.
Over the years, Language Log has noted many eggcorns that the linguists and their readers have spotted in the wilderness of the world and on the World Wide Web. In fact, the blog's contributors have helped create a substantial Internet database and discussion forum devoted to the identification and classification of eggcorns.
Language Log is a blog by self-professed "descriptive linguists." In other words (no pun intended, of course), they're interested in describing how language is used rather than in prescribing how it should be used. As scientists and scholars of the language, they would never tut-tut at verbal or textual flubs that violate the rules or sense of what language scolds call "proper" English. Their duty is to note, describe, and discuss said flubs.
Shakespeare made no such distinctions. One of his great comic characters, the constable Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing, enforces the law but commits crimes against the language. Shakespeare leaves no doubt: Dogberry is a clever moron — we're meant to laugh at him.
One word, sir! Dogberry requests of Leonato, governor of Messina. Our watch, sir, have indeed comprehended two aspicious persons.
Leonato eventually figures out that Dogberry's deputies have apprehended two suspicious persons and tells him to interrogate the villains. Their arrest, like that of the Watergate burglars, marks the unraveling of a nefarious plot.
The Irish-born playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan, writing 175 years after Shakespeare, created another memorable mangler of language in his play The Rivals. Her name is Mrs. Malaprop, and she is famous for the phrases She's as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile, and He is the very pineapple of politeness, among others. Indeed, Mrs. Malaprop, whose name literally means inappropriate, became synonymous with the kind of verbal goof that afterward became known as a malapropism.
Classic literary malapropisms of the sort committed by Dogberry and Mrs. Malaprop are driven by distinctions between social classes. They are uttered by characters who aspire to impress their betters — but fail by comically garbling the language. Pineapple sounds like pinnacle, and Mrs. Malaprop doesn't know the difference; the educated reader or playgoer does. The long-winded Dogberry, when told by Leonato that he is tedious, takes it as a compliment, replying, If I were as tedious as a king, I could find it in my heart to bestow it all of your worship.
Eggcorns are just malapropisms — misspellings or misuses of language that invite comic readings. But eggcorns differ from Mrs. Malaprop's sort of mistakes in several ways.
For one thing, eggcorns make some sense: An acorn (if one removes the acorn's cap) is shaped like an egg. And the nut also resembles a kernel of corn, or a seed. So if you were to hear the word acorn spoken unclearly, and hadn't seen it spelled out before, it would be perfectly logical to think that the egg-shaped nuts hanging from an oak tree were called egg corns. Eggcorns thus have a semantic logic to them, even if that logic makes perfect nonsense.
For another thing, those who employ eggcorns aren't pretending to be something they're not — they're not usually aspiring to an elite vocabulary or sophistication that will help them break through barriers of education and class, those staples of British humor. Eggcorns are quintessentially modern and democratic malapropisms: Their language is that of pop culture, cliché, pseudo-bureaucratic business boilerplate, secondhand phrases, and talk-radio blather. Those who inadvertently create them (eggcornists? eggcorners? eggcornvicts? eggcoroners?) aren't scrupulous writers, and when they feel inspired to write they often use phrases, words, and ideas that they haven't seen written down before — and get them wrong.
More important, they aren't really trying to appear literate and sophisticated; they're writing to friends who don't much care if they're peaked or piqued. Most of these malapropisms are not the work of journalists whose editors should know better, or of academic or literary authors whose mistakes should embarrass them. They're the work of fan-fiction authors, gamers, blog commentators, tweeters, Facebook friends, and small-time Internet entrepreneurs advertising their businesses with more enthusiasm than sophistication.
Sometimes their mistakes produce new words. (Eggcorn itself has begun to appear in far more respectable and scientific dictionaries than this one.) But often eggcorn-creators just substitute one like-sounding word for another. For instance, a migraine sufferer wrote to the experts at WWW.MEDHELP.ORG, saying, Sometimes I curl up in a feeble position grabbing my head and holding it with my knees. This, too, makes perfect nonsense — the headache was so bad that it made her curl up feebly, like a helpless fetus. How can someone who loves language not find that delightful?
We've all made such flubs, at one time or another. The particular pleasure that one gets when one discovers a modern malapropism in the wild comes in part from ferreting out the logic that underlies it. This dictionary's entries attempt to do just that, where it can be deduced, and offer speculation where it can't. Admittedly, sometimes the mistakes are simply homophones (like-sounding words), or the originator is the victim of a spell-check program that "corrects" a mere typo (such as sinch) into a word that means something else entirely (synch instead of the intended cinch).
Many malapropisms are figures of speech and can be comically envisioned, which adds to their charm. It is, for example, hard to resist the picture of someone exercising his demons. This dictionary helps the process along by illustrating what some of the mistakes suggest.
But the point here isn't to shame the malapropagandists: It's to amuse and inform those of us who care about words. You probably picked it up because you, too, delight in discovering the creative misuse of language; you are interested not only in knowing that butt naked is a malapropism but also in how the more standard buck naked might have come to be. Perhaps, like me, you are an oft-scorned punster, or you're a crossword-puzzler, or you're the demon proofreader who keeps your office's communications typo-free and knows that anal retentive does not take a hyphen unless it is used as a compound adjective.
In any event, this book is for you. So, without further adieu, and with no alterior motive, here are illustrated malapropisms and nauseam to peak your interest. I hope you are awaiting them with baited breath.
— Robert Alden Rubin
a note on terminology
This dictionary is one writer's literary reading of lists of common malapropisms and does not aspire to be a formal work of scientific linguistics. However, definitions of some basic terms may help you better understand certain entries. Cross-references to these terms are printed in SMALL CAPS in the dictionary. Cross-references to other malapropisms are also in SMALL CAPS.
COGNATES — A word's parallels in other, related languages; the meanings are often not identical.
COLLOQUIAL — Ordinary language, not intended to be literary or formal.
DIALECT — A version of a language, often different and less formal than STANDARD USAGE.
EGGCORN — A MALAPROPISM that nonetheless makes some sense, even if it changes the original words or phrases that inspired it.
ETYMOLOGY — The historical development of words and their meanings, and the study of that development.
FOLK ETYMOLOGY — Popular understanding of a word's origins that may be unrelated to its actual origins. An example would be acorn, which was long thought to be a combination of English's oak and corn. In fact, acorn derives from languages that predate English, and it essentially meant wild seeds from unenclosed lands.
HOMONYM — A word or phrase that is spelled the same as another but has a different meaning and sometimes a different pronunciation.
HOMOPHONE — A word or phrase that is pronounced the same (or nearly so) as another but may be spelled differently and has a different meaning.
IDIOM — A phrase whose meaning might be hard to deduce from its components but is commonly understood by speakers of a language (e.g., from here on in).
MALAPROPISM — A word or phrase that has been mistaken for another, usually because of its sound rather than its meaning (e.g., mistaking tambourine for trampoline); sometimes called FayCutler Malapropisms.
METAPHOR — A figure of speech that represents one thing (love) by another (a red, red rose); compare SIMILE.
MONDEGREEN — A misheard line in a song or poem, such as hearing and Lady Mondegreen when the actual verse is and laid him on the green.
PORTMANTEAU — Two words blended to make a new one (e.g., motor + hotel = motel).
PUN — A deliberate play on words as opposed to the unintentional MALAPROPISM.
REANALYSIS — The mental process by which a speaker justifies an EGGCORN to himself or herself (e.g., believing doesn't know me from atom refers to elemental particles, not the Bible).
SIMILE — A figure of speech in which one thing is said to be like another (you're like the Mona Lisa); compare METAPHOR.
SLANG — Informal language used by a particular group, such as teenagers or college students.
SPOONERISM — Transposing parts of words (e.g., a blushing crow for a crushing blow).
STANDARD USAGE — Linguists tend to avoid saying something is "incorrect," and some argue that a native speaker of a language by definition cannot make "errors" in it; instead they distinguish between standard and nonstandard conventions of usage.
key to the entries
(1) coma, Oxford
(2) V: (3) serial coma, lapse into a comma. (4) Rarely an (5) EGGCORN, often a PUN, and sometimes a spelling error in which the o-m-m of comma is heard as that in commingle rather than as that in comment. An Oxford coma might occur after a long lecture, but more probably before the last of a series of three or more such lectures. • (6) In the case of the Oxford coma, suggest that common sense and style govern its usage. (7) WWW.RAGAN.COM • (8) 17 MAY 2014
1. headword: Listed alphabetically. Phrases containing a malapropism, such as cutting age, are alphabetized by the nonstandard word or words (e.g., age,, cutting). The headword is printed in bold.
2. V: Indicates that variants are included in the entry.
3. Variants: Variants of the malapropism, printed in italics.
4. Main entry: Discusses the semantics of the entry, and word and phrase origins.
5. CROSS-REFERENCE: Refers to definitions on pages 7–9 and/or to other entries.
6. Recent example: An example of the usage, as found on the Internet.
7. URL: Partial URL of the source of the example.
8. DATE RETRIEVED: Date the example was retrieved (not the date it was written).
Please note that some of the links referenced in this work are no longer active.
a
adieu, without further
V:much adieu. Conflation of adieu (goodbye) with ado (complicated doings, ceremony) to mean "without saying anything more." • Without further adieu ... the next remix album is ... *drumroll* Animal Crossing!
age, cutting
Mixes cutting edge, a METAPHOR for technological newness, with modern age, a characterization of recent history connoting up-to-date technology and attitudes. • In businesses I bring cutting age innovation, to assist leadership and their teams transform themselves and their business.
Alcatraz around my neck, like an
A SIMILE that confuses a notorious prison with the neckwear of the speaker in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's famous poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner; the mariner is notorious for killing an albatross, and his fellow sailors consequently force him to wear it in penance. • I always found a job to be like an Alcatraz around my neck.
all be darned
V:all be damned. Mixes up expressions of anger (such as darn it all!) and surprise (such as I'll be darned!) to suggest something so surprising that everybody should be darned, or damned. • I mentioned a pink-eyed pea (cow pea) that my mentor, John Neal used to make a risotto with. All be darned if they didn't grow them. ...
alterior motive
Merges alternative (other) with ulterior (hidden) to mean other motive. • I don't have an alterior motive and I am not paid to do this.
allusion, optical
An allusion refers to something without naming it directly, whereas an illusion is something the senses misperceive. So a drawing that nods to the work of M. C. Escher might be an optical allusion to optical illusions. Many allusions are illusory, but this mistake rarely qualifies as an EGGCORN. • Another optical allusion, if you look careful and long enough, you will see a concealed weapon!
and absurdum, reductio
English's and often gets mixed up with the Latin ad (to or on), as in the following example, as well as in AND HOMINEM and AND NAUSEAM. This EGGCORN suggests something small and absurd. The standard phrase, reductio ad absurdum, means something slightly different: simplifying an argument to its essence to demonstrate its absurdity. • If you have a copy of Lincoln Murder Conspiracies see the chapter titled "Reductio and Absurdum."
and a while, once
Confuses once in a while with phrases such as once and for all, and a while (longer), awhile, once and future, once and again, etc. "Once in a" is usually pronounced "Once 'n uh," as if it were "and a," adding to the confusion. • FX is also concerned about why it is important to make room in your life for alcohol every once and a while.
and cheek, tongue
Possibly confuses tongue in cheek (being ironic or flippant) with tongue-and-groove (a type of joint often used for flooring and siding). Flippant people are considered "cheeky," and their speech might be a case of "tongue" and "cheek." • [W] ith all due respect, unless that was a tongue and cheek remark, I'm afraid you been downing more wine than I previously had thought.
and chief, commander
Commander and chief is a description, not a military rank. Britain's Prince Charles, for example, was given the rank of commander (and later admiral) in the Royal Navy, and may one day be king, the largely ceremonial chief executive of the state, but would not exercise authority as commander in chief of the UK armed forces, a rank with which the description is often confused. • Why would a man who was running for the office of Commander and Chief of the US Armed Forces refuse to discuss his service in the military?
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Going to Hell in a Hen Basket by Robert Alden Rubin. Copyright © 2015 Robert Alden Rubin. Excerpted by permission of Flatiron Books.
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