Eggcorn: "point fun at"

[Laurence Horn]

On Feb 12, 2013, at 7:50 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:

> Pointing fun at is more polite than poking fun at.

I don't know about that.  I was always taught that pointing is rude, but nobody ever told me not to poke.

LH
>
> At 2/12/2013 11:29 AM, ADSGarson O'Toole wrote:
>> Here is an instance of "pointing fun at" in 1893. But the frequency of
>> occurrence of the phrase seems to be much lower than the phrase
>> "poking fun at". (See OED entry below.) Charlie did not say what
>> phrase the eggcorn was based on, and I am inferring that the starting
>> phrase was "poking fun at".
>>
>> [ref] 1893 November 25, "The Athenaeum: A Journal of Literature,
>> Science, the Fine Arts, Music, and the Drama", Ossian in Fiction,
>> (Letter to editor from the author of 'An Ancient Ancestor'), Quote
>> Page 734, Column 3, Published by John C. Francis, London. [/ref]
>>
>> [Begin excerpt]
>> Your reviewer is not alone in pointing fun at my Greek monogram and my
>> Latin inscription; but every student of archaeology knows that the
>> tombstones of heroes who lived and died in the early ages of the
>> Christian era have been found in the British Isles similarly
>> inscribed.
>> [End excerpt]
>>
>> The OED has a relevant entry for "poke one's fun at" with a first
>> cite in 1795.
>>
>> poke, v.1
>> 4. c. trans. to poke (one's) fun (at) : to tease, ridicule, make fun
>> of, esp. in a sly or indirect manner.
>> 1795   J. Swanwick Rub from Snub 57,   I fancied some waggith 'wight'
>> had been poking his fun at you.
>> 1825   J. Neal Brother Jonathan 108   He's ony pokin' fun at us, all
>> the time, I know!
>>
>> Garson
>>
>> On Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 10:26 AM, Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:
>> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > Poster:       Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
>> > Subject:      Eggcorn:  "point fun at"
>> >
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >
>> > A folklore student of mine mentioned (in writing) "jokes pointing
>> fun at someone . . . ."
>> >
>> > I find 109,000 raw Google hits for the participial form "pointing
>> fun at."  (The form "point fun at" gets too many false positives.)
>> >
>> > Charlie
>> >
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>
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