Tim’s weblog post tonight: Mother Tongue Annoyances » Just Assume It’s Jus... opened my eyes to a branch of language errors I had never known: The “Egg Corns.” I’ve been having a blast testing my wife’s spelling of these idiosyncratic phrases. These are the misspelled and often misunderstood quips and idioms of our culture. Thank you Tim for shining a light on these. They are now linked in my sidebar. Check out the egg corns, you may find a few faux pas of your own. (Incidentally, if anybody knows a better way to pluralize the French noun ‘faux pas,’ please leave me a comment.)
Hi. I'm Damien Riley, MA.
3 Comments
My favorite on the list is bumpetta-bumpetta. That’s better than the original!!!
Jessica
When I was younger, never having heard a Texan tongue say “faux pas,” I thought it was pronounce “fox paws.” Those were a good list of egg corns. Another Texan one was a “chester drawers.” I thought my dresser was named after a guy named Chester. You could have knocked me over with a feather when I found out it was “chest of drawers.”
Thanks for the links!
I’ll have to go back and have a look at “bumpetta bumpetta.” Sounds funny. You know, I used to go drink beer at a place called “Chester Drawers” in Newport Beach. I wonder if they knew it was an egg corn. Thank you for your comments.