The loss of cliché comprehension in modern text

[MacCruiskeen]

Here here, my head literally explodes, it needs to be reigned in.

Your head needs to be reigned in?

I believe you mean "rained in".

[JackRiddler]

It's wet enough in there already.

Ha, today I discovered two that I've been doing forever.

As you can see above I thought it was hear, hear, but it really is here, here. In this case, as with many eggcorns, the meanings match well.

And you know how hotels list room prices that are completely outrageous, and that one rarely pays in full? This is called the rack rate. Turns out that's the actual technical term, but for decades until a few hours ago I thought it was the rat rate, and that it was a wag's way of making fun of hotels. The joke's on me. (Or is it jokes ennui?)

[MacCruiskeen]

You have just verschlechtbessert yourself, for it is in fact "hear hear":

As a parliamentary cheer, hear him, hear him! is first recorded in the late seventeenth century and continued into the nineteenth; the reduction to hear! or hear, hear! occurred by the late eighteenth century. However, the use of the verb hear as an imperative meaning 'listen!' is older: a notable example is the parliamentary-sounding "Then cried a wise woman out of the city, Hear, hear" (King James Bible, 2 Samuel xx 16)

http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.p ... e=19980304

The choke's on Hugh.

[JackRiddler]

Was eye rite awl a long? Teaches me and lessen four trusting a sight cawled Grammar Girl.

Half the jokes on The Sopranos were eggcorns. If that matters.

[Project Willow]

That eggcorns site is funny and depressing. I think the worst I've done in public is substitute mute for moot. I blame middle age. I'll never forget the teasing and laughter of my teenage friends at my mispronunciation of the word impotent however. That's why I like the way the English say contribute. I rarely hear anyone pronounce Ayn Rand or Tolkien correctly.

[82_28]

Oh, an ex girlfriend of mine said "textes" as opposed to "texts". For a foul mouthed motherfucker I must be annoying to some, as I was a total maven about her use of the understandable, yet non-existent word "textes".

So he all textes me back. . .

You mean texted (or even text'd) you back?

Like I said, it all makes sense. There is enough to grok in order to glean meaning. However, it is strange how many maxims and clichés wind up getting all the words mixed up as far as modern parlance.

And BPH. I meant the title as it sits and not in the sense of "how is sitting on this guy's cock right now treating you?" And then have some random FBI story from Wichita or something greet you when you click the link.

[Hammer of Los]

...

Was eye rite awl a long? Teaches me and lessen four trusting a sight cawled Grammar Girl.

Is Grammar Girl a sight to behold?

She sounds hot.

And what do you want to know about my eye rite awl?

It is pretty long.

Moving swiftly on.

...

[kelley]

all overwhelming evidence the nazis have indeed won.

[beeline]

I just read 'full boar,' which at least makes some sense, but is still funny.

[stickdog99]

I grade the papers of people who want to become doctors. Here is my partial collection:

peaked my curiosity

one must curve one's expectations

which basically sealed his faith

without further to do

it was like an outer body experience

for all intensive purposes

while he could never completely exercise his demons

but that is a mute point

it could become our death nail

they made him the escape goat

but he cut off his nose despite his face

many people take it for granite that

he was chopping at the bit

God for bid!

but his friend did not want to still his thunder

while some feel such statements are way out of bounce

or something of that elk

tenants of democracy

many such theories were left by the waste side

a plight on our nation

if they are false profits, we'll know soon enough

the right to bare arms

as opposed to the former, the ladder example

of upmost importance

covering all basis

the army is not for pre-madonnas

that court decision set a president

and thus they proved their medal

inherit to the nature of freedom

but it turned into a fee for all

ravished by injuries

add odds

at hoc

maybe I'm bias, but ...

very inciteful

[semper occultus]

.....that was absolutley priceless...thankyou for those freshly minted howlers...escape goats...I knew there was one of these at the back of my mind I couldn't think of...

....pre-maddonnas.....genius ( another word for virgin presumably )

[82_28]

stickdog, we can probably just call this thread hear by closed with that list! That was awesome. I always make a note when I see them, yet always fail to recall what it was I read soon after. Thanks for that!

[82_28]

Oh, just now saw the eggcorns link, thanks for that too, wombat!

We had a staff meeting once and my boss kept saying "cleansiness". Myself and a friend who was actually taking editing classes at the time would look across the room to each other and she and I would literally be soooo close to busting into troublesome laughter. We still use the term to this day together as an inside joke.

Also, I got into a debate with a dude at the bar last night about "milquetoast" because he was talking to some other dude and used the term. Other dude says, "what the hell is a milquetoast?"

Other guy, who used the term says, "it's like milk and toast. Bland, doesn't know what he's doing, like milk and toast".

I say, "the fuck it is, Mr.X".

I go on to explain. I spell it out. Then I go grab a piece of paper and write the spelling down and explain its meaning and etymology.

"What is this, some French shit?" he says to me.

I say, "fuck you, bro. That's the word. That's how it's spelled."

"No it's not."

"Sure is, bro."

"I don't believe you."

I'm like "look it up, dude."

So he does. After about five minutes he says "oh yeah, you're right. I didn't know that at all."

Looking back on it, I sooooooo should have made like a $100 bet with him! He probably would have taken it.

[JackRiddler]

Stickdog99, thank you! I think I've seen all of those before except for pre-Madonna, which is priceless. It fits. Someone so entitled and caught up in the American myth of celebrity she thinks she will one day be treated just like Madonna!

I'm glad you kept a master list. You surely noticed that DU is an eggcorn hothouse, since a lot of people there think they're smart. True of any middlebrow institution. Some people unerringly go for these turns of phrase. There's a system in it. If you see one, you'll often see several in succession. It's not random. It's so common that a lot of it is starting to look right to me. When I hit another "inciteful," I don't even notice it, I gloss over it. Just as well. Many of them make sense in that they tend to illuminate a part of the meaning of the phrase, like escape goat.

The other day I saw "anarcho-primatists." I said, hey now, those anarchs may be backwards, but they're not monkeys!

[Luther Blissett]

82, do you live in Seattle proper? I feel like I am experiencing the opposite trend as I get older. My hometown was rife with these errors, and was always coupled with our strange Pennsylvania Dutch / Puerto Rican / Polish accent.

Whenever I hear "It's a pleasure to meet you," I immediately fire off in my brain the subsequent phrases "it's a pleat to measure you, it's a meat to pleasure you," but that's derived from a friend's old art piece, not an incomprehension.