"some many"?

[Herb Stahlke]

This is the first eggcorn I've seen that violates a syntactic
cooccurrence restriction.  "Some" and "many" don't cooccur, so what
does it say about English speakers who write this eggcorn?  Clearly
it's a feature of writing rather than of speech, although it seems to
arise from the phonetic identity of reduced "so" before /m/ and
reduced "some."  What doesn't make sense is how something that isn't
syntactically possible shows up as the written form for [sm-'mEni].

Herb

On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 10:44 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: "some many"?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 9:17 PM +0800 6/11/09, Randy Alexander wrote:
>>On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 8:10 PM, Tom Zurinskas<truespel at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>  The "some many" quote was written at this site.
>>>
>>>  =20
>>>
>>  >
>>http://www.lockergnome.com/windows/2009/06/10/bring-the-quick-launch-toolba=
>>  > r-back-in-windows-7/
>>>
>>>  You bring up an intersting point. ? We don't know from quote marks
>>>if it's a=
>>>  ? written quote or spoken quote. ? We need a different symbol. ?
>>>We'll make th=
>>>  at `"yak yak yak"`=2C unless there is a precedent. ? The symbol
>>>(`) is locat=
>>>  ed on my keyboard at top row left with the tilde (~). ? I don't
>>>know the nam=
>>>  e.
>>
>>If we provide a link, then whether the quote was spoken or written
>>should be obvious.
>>
> Or we can google "some many" and find not just some but many
> instances, at least some (if not many) of which do seem to be
> eggcornish reconstructions of "so many".  Some may be from non-native
> speakers--
>
> why are some many girl getting pregant so young these days?
> http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/lifestyle-discussion/why-are-some-many-girl-getting-pregant-so-young-these-days/t.50698569_16/?
>
> Many people feel confused why there are some many different prices on
> so called "BB/CC" grade of Chinese Poplar plywood?
> http://www.globalholz.de/China-Plywood-Grade_and_Construction.doc
>
> Perhaps we can combine this thread with the earlier one on the
> consequences of English globalizing to China.
>
>
> LH
>
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