not quite eggcorns

[Wilson Gray]

That's certainly a real possibility, Mark, seem like to me.

-Wilson
–––
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.
-----
-Mark Twain



On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 9:55 PM, Mark Mandel <thnidu at gmail.com> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: not quite eggcorns
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 11:57 AM, Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu> wrote:
>
>> On Dec 19, 2008, at 8:10 PM, Victor wrote:
>>
>> > ... 1.    I don't want to wear this hat because it's too big for me.
>> > -- Do
>> > you want to wear my hat? -- No, it's *too-bigger*!
>>
>> this is from a kid, but "too bigger" 'too much bigger' (and "so
>> bigger", "that bigger", etc.) are moderately common (as a non-standard
>> variant, not an error).
>>
>>   ..too big is terrible... hehe... yes, C CUP is enough ...above D is
>> too bigger... A/B should be ignored. ...
>> bbs.chinadaily.com.cn/viewthread.php?gid=2&tid=594913&extra=&page=40
>>
>
> This may be a joking comparative, (too big) + er, like the following:
>
>
>> the kid example has a somewhat different semantics for "too much
>> bigger" -- something like 'even more too big'.  as in this example:
>>
>>   If GM and Chrsyler are too big to fail, wouldn't merging make them
>> "too bigger to fail" like all of these banks that are swallowing
>> each ...
>> www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/28/gm-making-case-that-its-t_n_138493.
>> html<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/28/gm-making-case-that-its-t_n_138493.html>
>>
>> an extra wrinkle is that "too bigger" (etc.) sometimes occur with what
>> looks like ordinary degree modification (without the "a(n)"):
>>
>>   It's not too bigger deal, I'm sure this list is mirrored somewhere.
>> www.nabble.com/Can't-import-keys-on-OSX-td19287064.html<http://www.nabble.com/Can%27t-import-keys-on-OSX-td19287064.html>
>>
>
> Might this not be a reanalysis of "it's not too big a deal"? (Instead of
> going to "not too big of a deal", as we have discussed a lot lately.)
>
> m a m
>
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