pastures anew: eggcorn?

[Charles Doyle]

This past week, in the Milton class I'm teaching, I identified the pentameter in "Lycidas" as "one of the most famous lines in all of English poetry." My students disagreed--professing complete prior (a few, even current!) unfamiliarity with it. O how the canon changes . . . .

"Pastures anew" doesn't even scan well!

--Charlie


---- Original message ----
>Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2007 11:12:02 -0400
>From: Lynne Murphy <m.l.murphy at SUSSEX.AC.UK>
>
>Not sure if this counts as an eggcorn, but received this today:
>
>"Farewell, I am leaving Sussex for pastures anew."
>
>2000 google hits for 'pastures anew' (vs. 225K for 'pastures new').
>
>The thing is, 'pastures new' seems to make more sense.  'Anew' just sounds more marked than 'new', so perhaps it seems more right to put it into a marked N-Adj structure?
>
>Lynne

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