Yankee eggcorn

[Laurence Horn]

At 2:43 PM -0400 9/22/08, Wilson Gray wrote:
>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.

Jeter is both (black player and white player, that is, not dumb
jock).  But there are an awful lot of other "never seem to amaze me"
or even "never seem to amaze me on how" speakers.  Are they all
trying to impress their interlocutors, or mightn't some of them just
be under the impression that that's what the locution is, as opaque
as it may seem?

LH

>
>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
>come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>-----
>-Mark Twain
>
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