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The Atlantic on "eggcorns"--in dance writing


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Oh, I'm so guilty of these because I read fast and type fast and speak fast (or carelessly).

Myrta was Martha

Before I learned Russian - it was Dan - ee - lova.

Err, what is the "right" pronounciation ? (I'd have the same question about Petrouchka, by the way).

dirac wrote:

You read the name or the word and automatically work out what sounds like a reasonable pronunciation, not realizing that it’s totally off base.

Well, it happens to me very often with so many English/ American words and names (I'm sure the way I "pronounce" the nicknames of many posters here probably has very little to do with their real pronounciation...)

Talking about "eggcorns", it reminds me of a comical TV program called "Les guignols de l'info" (it's a satirical program using puppets of famous characters in a sort of parody of TV news), some years ago one of their characters was a puppet looking like the (now retired) football/soccer player Jean-Pierre Papin. The character was depicted as, shall we say, not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer, and would often say "egg-corns" or some absurd mixing of expressions (e.g. "la sorcière m'a jeté un sort" ["the witch has cast a spell on me"] became "la sorcière m'a jeté un ressort" ["the witch has thrown a spring to me"]).

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Before I learned Russian - it was Dan - ee - lova.
Err, what is the "right" pronounciation ? (I'd have the same question about Petrouchka, by the way).
Thank you, Estelle! I was wondering the same for both!

A dear friend once described Gelsey Kirkland's Sylphide (Bournonville) as ETH- uh-reel. She had never encountered e-THEE-re-ul as a spoken word, only ethereal as a written one.

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I may be getting OT in re eggcorns, but here goes anyway: in an early grad course on the novel my ballet background intruded into class discussion in a funny way. I raised my hand to talk about Cervantes' Don Quixote and I referred to the novel as "Don Q" to strange looks all around. Good thing I didn't have a fan at hand!

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Every year at holiday time, parents dress up their children and head to the theater for "The Nutcracker Suite," :rolleyes: an error inevitably compounded by the young ones who call it "The Nutcracker Sweet/s".

I know a couple of small ensembles who have actually used this (Nutcracker Sweets) as a title.

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Can't believe I didn't think of this sooner; I believe it counts as an eggcorn although presumably the tv show with this phrase as its title considered it a pun: "To the manor born" (it's "to the manner born"). Rampant.

And this whole time, I thought it was "to the manor born." :beg:

So did I, but I guess it's about the manners at the manor.

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My apologies for multiple postings, but I hadn't seen this thread in a couple of days.

This isn't really an example of an eggcorn, if I understand that term, but it is a favorite example of misunderstanding a dance term. From an interview I did with Clare Lauche Porter on her career teaching ballet in Fresno, she said that the local newspaper 'corrected' one of her early audition notices, and reminded people that they should bring "pointed shoes" with them to the studio.

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a New Yorker filler once noted an upstate NY eatery offering to cook your burger 'to your likeness'

and how many tell you your order comes 'au garni'

or recited: 'today's soup de jour'

or being asked if your roast beef w/ 'aye juice' - presumably au jus...

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Not an eggcorn, but the distinction between "eminent" and "imminent" seems to have been lost. "Eminent" is winning; "imminent" is an endangered species. (In other word's, it's disappearance may be eminent. Or, at least, pre-eminent.)

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Not an eggcorn, but the distinction between "eminent" and "imminent" seems to have been lost. "Eminent" is winning; "imminent" is an endangered species. (In other word's, it's disappearance may be eminent. Or, at least, pre-eminent.)
And then there's "immanent," a perfectly good word which seems to have disappeared altogether, maybe because nobody could tell it apart from the other two.

About impact as a verb: I don't like it, but gave up on it when Robert Penn Warren used it that way in one of his best-known poems. If I recall correctly, it was first published in the New Yorker, no less!

And "waiting on": When I moved to New York many years ago, this drove me crazy. It sounded so odd to me. At some point, though, I realized I had begun to say it myself, and now it sounds perfectly normal. It's really no different than the difference between living ON a street and living IN a street. (In New York, if you live in a street, you're homeless.)

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or being asked if your roast beef w/ 'aye juice' - presumably au jus...

Most extreme version of this I've seen is 'Roast Beef with Au Jus Sauce' in Westchester diner somewhere.

And then there's "immanent," a perfectly good word which seems to have disappeared altogether, maybe because nobody could tell it apart from the other two.
Anthony, 'immanence' was never used in everyday speech as far as I know, but is still used as 'immanence' and 'immanent' in all major philosophical discussions, esp. of Deleuze, Spinoza, Adorno, many other philosophers. The cosmic force within instead of without things, etc.,

One thing a friend says is 'land up' for 'end up.' That can't be correct, can it? I'd never dare ask her.

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Not ballet, nor eggcorn, but I just read a review of Seattle Opera's Der Rosenkavalier, where one of the performers had been singled out for a great rendition of the role of "Herr von Finial" instead of Faninal. Given the elaborate "window treatments" of the set, it's no surprise that the reviewer had curtains on his mind.

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