What is an eggcorn?

Question

What is an eggcorn?

Question #148328. Asked by serpa.
Last updated Mar 05 2021.
Originally posted Mar 05 2021 11:08 AM.

pennie1478
Answer has 9 votes

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pennie1478
22 year member
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Answer has 9 votes.

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Eggcorns are words or phrases that are spoken (or written) when other words or phrases are meant. For example, all intensive purposes is an Eggcorn. The actual phrase is all intents and purposes.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/06/01/411231029/here-are-100-eggcorns-that-we-say-pass-mustard

Mar 05 2021, 12:26 PM

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Answer 1

The term "eggcorn" was coined by Geoffrey Pollum, a Scottish linguist and professor of General Linguistics at the University of Edinburgh when discussing with his American colleague Mark Lieberman on a blog for linguists.

The term eggcorn (...) was coined by professor of linguistics Geoffrey Pullum in September 2003 in response to an article by Mark Liberman (...). Liberman discussed the case of a woman who substitutes the phrase "egg corn" for the word "acorn", and he argued that the precise phenomenon lacked a name. Pullum suggested using eggcorn itself as a label.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_K._Pullum