just for chagrins

[Wilson Gray]

Interesting! Well, I am familiar with "just for the fuck of it." My
mother says, "just for the fee-U-N of it." So. my WAG is that other
versions are dysphemisms, since Mom dates from 1913.

BTW, IMO, if you're familiar with the derivations, "for the chagrins"
is pretty funny and is probably used on purpose.

-Wilson

On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 11:43 PM, Benjamin Zimmer
<bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: just for chagrins
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 11:31 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 8:01 PM, Benjamin Zimmer
> <bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>> Noted by Mike Pope on Evolving English II:
>>> http://evolvingenglish.blogspot.com/2008/09/and-for-chagiggles.html
>>>
>>> Examples given:
>>> "just for chagrins, lets just suppose that everything in this film is
>>> embellished"
>>> "That might be neat to find out just for chagrins."
>>> "Will probably resurrect the F body and try the filter with it (just
>>> for chagrins..)"
>>>
>>> Mike suggests (rightly, I think) that this is a malapropism and not an
> eggcorn.
>>
>> Thanks God! But, just for the fun of it, what word is "chagrins" replacing?
>
> "Grins". HDAS has "for grins" = 'for fun' from 1966, cross-referenced with "for
> greens" from 1848.
>
> Nowadays it's often expanded to "for grins and giggles" (hence the title of
> Mike's blog post, "...and for chagiggles"). I've never been able to figure out
> if "for grins/kicks/laughs/etc. and giggles" is a euphemization of "for shits
> and giggles", or if "shits" is a dysphemization.
>
> --Ben Zimmer
>
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--
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

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