FW: "Unchartered waters" or "uncharted waters" for Austin City Council?

Cohen, Gerald Leonard gcohen at MST.EDU
Fri Jul 30 16:47:42 UTC 2010


I forward the item below for those interested in eggcorns.

Gerald Cohen

________________________________

From: Ben Zimmer [mailto:bgzimmer at gmail.com]
Sent: Thu 7/29/2010 10:15 PM
To: Barry Popik
Cc: Cohen, Gerald Leonard
Subject: Re: "Unchartered waters" or "uncharted waters" for Austin City Council?



A common eggcorn:

http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/english/173/unchartered/


On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 11:10 PM, Barry Popik <bapopik at aol.com> wrote:
> On KVUE Austin News just now the lead story has been the proposed settlement
> for a police shooting.
> ...
> "This puts us in unchartered waters," said one city council member.
> ...
> When Columbus sailed, he went into UNCHARTED waters--not on any map or
> chart.
> ...
> UNCHARTERED waters are waters that are on a map or a chart, but don't have a
> charter?
> ...
> I can easily refudiate this argument.
> ...
> Barry Popik
> Round Rock, TX
> www.barrypopik.com
> ...
> P.S. I'll bet the Statesman runs this quote and cleans it up.

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



More information about the Ads-l mailing list