craven/graven eggcorn?

[James Landau]

There is more to this seemingly innocent eggcorn than most people suspect.
Most people (including both President Bush and his critics) consider the
Ten Commandments to be found in Exodus chapter XX.
Exodus XX:4  "Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image..."
But the Ten Commandments appear in two other places in the Pentateuch,
namely Exodus chapter XXXIV and Deuteronomy chapter V.  Deuteronomy V:8
repeats Exodus XX:4 word for word in the original Hebrew, but Exodus
XXXIV:17 reads "Thous shalt make thee no molten gods."    (both quotations
from the JPS 1917 translation).

Much could be made of the distinction between "graven" and "molten" images;
alternatively the subject can be dismissed as trivial.  Yet one must ponder
why the Pentateuch feels the need to ban images of both types.

          - James A. Landau
            Test Engineer
            Northrop-Grumman Information Technology
           8025 Black Horse Pike, Suite 300
           West Atlantic City   NJ


> [Original Message]
> From: Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Date: 1/16/2006 6:49:31 PM
> Subject: Re: craven/graven eggcorn?
>
>
> I'm with you, Neil: "graven image"; "craven fool."
>
> -Wilson
>
> On 1/16/06, neil <neil at typog.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> > Not sure whether this is an eggcorn; I'd always assumed the term was
> > 'craven':
> >
> > 'Perhaps there were people talking behind his back then, calling him a
> > graven fool, as he had once thought Fanny Hope, but now he had learned
the
> > hard way.'
> >
> > Sharyn McCrumb, 'The Resurrection Man', in Ed McBain [ed],
'Transgressions',
> > Orion, London, 2005, 368
> >
> > --Neil Crawford

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