pastures anew: eggcorn?

[Lynne Murphy]

Well, obviously, I didn't know it---which will probably shame me further as
our department is being forced into the English dept this month and I will
be back to explaining to literature people that it doesn't matter that it's
an introductory literature course, I still can't teach it!

Lynne

--On Sunday, September 16, 2007 2:24 pm -0400 Charles Doyle
<cdoyle at UGA.EDU> wrote:

> 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



Dr M Lynne Murphy
Senior Lecturer in Linguistics and English Language
Arts B135
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QN

phone: +44-(0)1273-678844
http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com

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