Eggcorn lexicalization?

Charles Doyle cdoyle at UGA.EDU
Fri Nov 9 15:17:43 UTC 2007


I don't remember what all was said in the earliest discussions of the term "eggcorn." However, I believe at issue is not only the initial vowel but also the later vowel (and, concomitantly, the degree of stress on the final syllable). My wife (from Chicago) says [e korn], with something like tertiary stress on the last syllable. I say [e k at rn], with the last syllable unstressed.

A little like the case with "lilac"?

--Charlie
_____________________________________________________________

---- Original message ----
>Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2007 08:35:49 -0500
>From: David Bowie <db.list at PMPKN.NET>
>Subject: Eggcorn lexicalization?
>
>I've mentioned before that the eggcorn-ness of "eggcorn" was opaque to me for a long time, because i pronounce "egg" as [Eg], not [eg]. This story is semi-related to this.
>
>I took two of my daughters to a park yesterday, and there were a couple of women there with their children. One of them, i swear, kept taling to her son about the "eggcorns" [Egk]orns he was picking up.
>
>I wouldn't have believed it had i not been there, since i'd have to think "acorn" is a word that people learn growing up, but there it was. From eavesdropping on her conversation with a friend of hers, it was apparent that she'd grown up somewhere in Central Florida (the park was in unincorporated Orange County, Florida, between Winter Park and Oviedo), but whether that meant growing up here from infancy or just her teenage years was unclear. Unfortunately, circumstances were such that i couldn't investigate more directly.
>
>--
>David Bowie

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



More information about the Ads-l mailing list