Three pairs of pronunciation

[Arnold Zwicky]

On Jun 28, 2010, at 9:55 AM, Larry Horn wrote:

> At 11:43 AM -0400 6/28/10, Dan Goncharoff wrote:
>> I am fairly certain I have never talked about "mourning coat/dress/attire"
>>
>> I accept your point about the Aeschylus/O'Neill plays. There would be no
>> way to divine the proper spelling from my pronunciation.
>>
>> DanG
>
> I suspect I also misparsed "mourning dove" the first time I heard the
> reference, and from googling "morning dove" I suspect I'm not alone
> in doing so.

"morning" for "mourning" in "mourning dove" and "Mourning Becomes Electra" is the subject of an early entry in the ecdb:
 http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/english/119/morning/

on the other hand, the item of men's formal apparel (part of the "white tie (and tails)" kit, with cutaway jacket and tails) is correctly labeled "morning coat", so if there are instances of "mourning coat" etc. out there, *these* are eggcorns, worth noting in their own right.  morning coats are most commonly worn at weddings these days (but also at formal balls, diplomatic receptions, etc.), and not at funerals, so the reinterpretation of "morning" as "mourning" would be a bit of surprise.  but funerals are serious, even formal, occasions, so maybe some people think of grieving when they hear about morning coats; after all, what, these people ask, do the coats have to do with the morning?

arnold

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