old factory < olefactory

[Michael H Covarrubias]

In 1988-89 my biology teacher Lloyd Penrod used this as a pun so that we would
remember the nerve that processes odors.

He gave us the whole story about walking by an old factory that smells
funny...[cut to]...we can smell because we have an "ol' factory" nerve.

Of course he made sure to impress upon us that this was a pun and not the actual
name of the nerve. So I guess it wasn't a true eggcorn in that instance.

Michael

Quoting Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>:
>
> At 11:48 AM -0700 9/16/07, Dave Wilton wrote:
> >GILES: He had a specific...olfactory presence.
> >
> >XANDER: So it's off to the old factory. I hate that place...I'm joking. I
> >know what it means. He smelled.
>
> OK, thanks.  I don't really think this particular pun would have been
> part of the trajectory that led to the examples I googled up, e.g.
>
> http://www.bootstrap.org/colloquium/session_08/session_08.html
> I was fascinated by something I read in a science magazine a while
> ago, the old factory system is something that is used to make our
> neurons grow the right place when we are forming. It smells its ways
> to your fingertips. How do we put our factory nodes into this so that
> the neurons will smell their way to the right place?
>
> or
> Either that or hippies smell stuff. Unlike her. She's probably coked
> out her entire old factory system and would probably not smell the
> house burning down,...
>
> I'd guess these are independent reanalyses of "olfactory system"
> rather than references to the exchange from Buffy.  Consider also the
> "old factory nerve":
>
> http://www.celebrity-link.com/videos9/948.html
> Morgan Fairchild plays Satin Chow a glamourous perfume designer who
> must seek out her long lost sisters in order to have an old factory
> nerve transplant to regain her sense of smell in this spoof of
> 'disease of the week' TV movies
>
> LH
>
>
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
> >Laurence Horn
> >Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2007 7:35 AM
> >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> >Subject: Re: old factory < olefactory
> >
> >At 7:30 AM -0700 9/16/07, Dave Wilton wrote:
> >>"Old factory" = "olfactory" was a joke on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer,"
> fifth
> >>season, episode "The Replacement" that aired 10 Oct 2000.
> >>
> >>Some appearances of the eggcorn may be references to this.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >Interesting.  Do you (or does Michael Adams) have the context for that
> joke?
> >
> >LH
> >
> >>-----Original Message-----
> >>From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
> Of
> >>Laurence Horn
> >>Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2007 7:14 AM
> >>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> >>Subject: Re: old factory < olefactory
> >>
> >>At 10:01 AM -0400 9/16/07, David Bergdahl wrote:
> >>>I propose that we add "Eggcorn of the Year" to our annual list--and I
> >>>nominate this one!
> >>>
> >>I'll recuse myself from the latter suggestion, but I'd be happy to
> >>support the former one--the tricky part would be closing off the
> >>nominations.
> >>
> >>LH
> >>
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> >
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>
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>




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   English Language & Linguistics
   Purdue University
   mcovarru at purdue.edu

   web.ics.purdue.edu/~mcovarru
  <http://wishydig.blogspot.com>

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