rg Posted August 16, 2006 Share Posted August 16, 2006 but the phrase is 'to the manor born,' no? for years i heard 'toe the line' as 'tow the line' Link to comment
Dale Posted August 16, 2006 Share Posted August 16, 2006 but the phrase is 'to the manor born,' no?for years i heard 'toe the line' as 'tow the line' The folks at Random House explain all at this link (and point out that, in a way, both make sense): http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=19990721 Link to comment
Estelle Posted August 16, 2006 Share Posted August 16, 2006 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"]). Link to comment
carbro Posted August 16, 2006 Share Posted August 16, 2006 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. Link to comment
rg Posted August 17, 2006 Share Posted August 17, 2006 i knew of gal who ran up to a special friend and gushed: i'm so static to see you! Link to comment
Ray Posted August 17, 2006 Author Share Posted August 17, 2006 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! Link to comment
Leigh Witchel Posted August 17, 2006 Share Posted August 17, 2006 Ray: "Don Q." Class: "You're welcome!" Link to comment
sandik Posted August 17, 2006 Share Posted August 17, 2006 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. Link to comment
sandik Posted August 17, 2006 Share Posted August 17, 2006 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." So did I, but I guess it's about the manners at the manor. Link to comment
sandik Posted August 17, 2006 Share Posted August 17, 2006 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. Link to comment
bart Posted August 19, 2006 Share Posted August 19, 2006 Just heard someone say "the gig is up" (2 hard g's). I'd always thought of it as "the jig is up." Which is correct? Here's a Link with an answer. http://www.cbc.ca/news/indepth/words/gigjig.html For ballet people, I'm sure the proper phrase is: "The gigue is up." And for sailors: "The jib is up." (Or, possibly, the "jibe.") Link to comment
Leigh Witchel Posted August 19, 2006 Share Posted August 19, 2006 I'm finding more and more restaurants offering a "prefix" dinner. Link to comment
sandik Posted August 19, 2006 Share Posted August 19, 2006 I'm finding more and more restaurants offering a "prefix" dinner. It's not fair when you make me choke on my tea! Link to comment
rg Posted August 19, 2006 Share Posted August 19, 2006 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... Link to comment
kfw Posted August 19, 2006 Share Posted August 19, 2006 We all know "post-mortem." Certain people where I work refer to sizing up business opportunities before they go after them as . . . , that's right, "pre-mortems." Link to comment
Mel Johnson Posted August 20, 2006 Share Posted August 20, 2006 Well, doing business is always easier that way, unless, of course, you're a traveling Bible salesman.... Link to comment
bart Posted August 24, 2006 Share Posted August 24, 2006 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.) Link to comment
Anthony_NYC Posted August 25, 2006 Share Posted August 25, 2006 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.) Link to comment
papeetepatrick Posted August 25, 2006 Share Posted August 25, 2006 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. Link to comment
Farrell Fan Posted August 25, 2006 Share Posted August 25, 2006 "Land up" for "end up" sounds perfectly normal to me, perhaps because many of the kids I grew up with in East Harlem (an Italian-American neighborhood at the time) landed up in trouble. Link to comment
Hans Posted August 25, 2006 Share Posted August 25, 2006 That sounds like a mishmash of two expressions: "landed in trouble" and "ended up in trouble." Link to comment
Helene Posted August 25, 2006 Share Posted August 25, 2006 That sounds like a mishmash of two expressions: "landed in trouble" and "ended up in trouble."And I thought it was "landed up in jail" vs. "ended up in jail." Link to comment
Hans Posted August 25, 2006 Share Posted August 25, 2006 I can definitely see how "You'll end up in jail" could sound like "You'll land up in jail." Link to comment
carbro Posted August 25, 2006 Share Posted August 25, 2006 Didn't Neil Armstrong and his crewmates (and followers) land up? Link to comment
Helene Posted August 25, 2006 Share Posted August 25, 2006 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. Link to comment
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