Eggcorn?

[Wilson Gray]

Well, arnold, you've persuaded me that "berry" may be just a
misspelling of "bury," given that, even if "bury the hatchet" has no
meaning for current young adults, "*berry* the hatchet" is not likely
to be more meaningful.

Once, a Dutch friend showed me a picture that the late, great Julian
"Cannonball" Adderley has autographed to her. My friend read the
autograph as "To de [on] I love." I said no. It says "To the [w^n] I
love." She said no, it says "To de [on] I love." I got the last word
be asking her to tell me what "To the own I love" meant.

FWIW, "Cannonball" is said to be an eggcorning of "Cannibal" (he was a
heavy eater), pronounced "kannih bawl" in Southern BE. I myself used
to picture "Hannibal" in history and Missouri in my personal phonology
as "Hannih bawl." Fortunately, I heard it pronounced in sE before I
had occasion to pronounce it, myself. Hm. Now that I think of it, I'm
not sure that I've ever had occasion at any time in my life to speak
"Hannibal" aloud.

-Wilson

On 2/15/07, Arnold M. Zwicky <zwicky at csli.stanford.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Eggcorn?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Feb 15, 2007, at 10:22 AM, i wrote:
>
> > On Feb 13, 2007, at 10:21 AM, Wilson Gray wrote:
> >
> >>> From Slash Dot:
> >>
> >> "It's time for Apple and Microsoft to _berry_ the hatchet ..."
>
> a footnote: i pronounce "bury" to rhyme with "curry" rather than
> "Terry" -- yes, i know this is non-standard -- so this is a
> misspelling i wouldn't be tempted to.
>
> arnold
>
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All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Sam'l Clemens

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