Yankee eggcorn

[Wilson Gray]

Sounds like a variety of so-called "spade logic" to me, an attempt to
control forms with which he is totally unfamiliar in a failed attempt
to live up to what to what he feels that his interlocutors expect of
him, so as not to disgrace the race.

You find the same thing among white players trying not to sound like dumb jocks.

Needless to say, there are players who are self-assured enough to use
so-called "colorful" <har! har!> language, irregardless of the
enviyerment in which they find themselves.

(Yes, I'm aware that not every user of colorful language is colored. A
prime counterexample is Saint Louis's own "Yogi" Berra.)

-Wilson

On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 10:20 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Yankee eggcorn
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 9:47 AM -0400 9/22/08, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>>On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 12:06 AM, Benjamin Zimmer
>><bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>>  Derek Jeter to Peter Gammons on ESPN just now (after the last game at Yankee
>>>  Stadium): "The fans here never seem to amaze me."
>>
>>Listen for yourself here (right at the beginning of the clip):
>>
>>http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/video/videopage?categoryId=2378529&brand=null&videoId=3601782&n8pe6c=2
>>
>>
>>>  The Eggcorn Database already has "never seize(s) to amaze":
>>>
>>>  http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/english/351/seize/
>>>
>>>  ...but Google suggests "never seem(s) to amaze" is about as common.
>>>
>>>  http://www.google.com/search?q=never-seize|seizes-to-amaze
>>  > http://www.google.com/search?q=never-seem|seems-to-amaze
>>
> And in particular "it never seems to amaze me on how...", which I
> can't even figure out what is an eggcorn for.
>
> LH
>
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All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
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