"in the mist of" (possible new eggcorn)

[Jonathan Lighter]

"In the mist of life we are in death."

          --<OnlyRice>, "I was just thinking about  guard..," (Usenet:rec.arts.marching.colorguard), Aug. 14, 1997.

And elsewhere, no doubt.

JL
Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Laurence Horn
Subject: "in the mist of" (possible new eggcorn)
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from a contributor to a cancer survivors and caretakers support group:

"well, in the mist of all of this with [name of spouse with cancer] I
had fell and hit my head..."

Whether this was a typo for "in the midst of" or a reanalysis isn't
entirely knowable. But since the "all of this" in the context refers
to the murky complexity of misdiagnoses, denial of coverage, etc.
etc., I suspect the "mist" is in fact a reanalysis/eggcorn. (This is
the same writer who previously contributed "biospy" for "biopsy".)

Larry




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