foilage

[Benjamin Barrett]

I pretty much agree with this. I think to this day I probably
pronounce it to myself as "foil~" when reading, though I don't think
I've ever said it or written it down. I do recognize the "foli"
pronunciation.

I don't think I've ever associated the word with "foil," but rather
picked that pronunciation because of the similarities to other words
such as "foil." Particularly as a kid, I generally gloss over new
words when reading and so words just got pronounced however I saw them.

HTH
Benjamin Barrett
a cyberbreath for language life
livinglanguages.wordpress.com

On Mar 14, 2008, at 9:02 AM, Damien Hall wrote:

> I think _foliage_ > _foilage_ is an eggcorn, though it's difficult
> to pin down
> the exact reasons why.  It's actually a mistake I used to make as a
> child.  (I
> was a precocious child, to be aware of the word at all, as opposed
> to just
> saying _leaves_;  sorry about that.)
>
> Semantically, for someone who speaks only English (which describes
> me at that
> time), you could explain it by the similarity of leaves to foil, in
> that both
> are thin, flat and rustly.  For someone who has at some point learnt
> at least
> some French, which probably describes most British adults at least,
> there's
> also a possible link with _feuille_ 'leaf', which does at least
> contain an
> upgliding diphthong beginning with a rounded element, like the one
> in _foil_.
>
> Phonologically / phonetically, the link could be as simple as a
> spelling
> transposition aided by the extant word _foil_, if that counts.  If
> the mistake
> is made by someone who vocalises /l/ in that environment (cf
> _William_ [wi:j at m]
> etc), you can get to something that's kind of close to _foilage_:
>
> [fowliIJ] > [fowjiIJ] or something
>
> but then the /l/ would have to be hypercorrectly reintroduced in the
> wrong place
> in the word, by attraction from _foil_, maybe?
>
> But you can tell I am running into difficulties here:  I have the
> feeling that
> I'm reaching.  I'd be glad to be knocked down by others!

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