eminent/imminent

[Joel S. Berson]

I would like to repeat earlier comments
suggesting that this perhaps should be treated as an eggcorn.

Ben Z. wrote:
>I may have considered either imm->em or em->imm for inclusion at some
>point but decided it wasn't quite eggcorny, as it often appears to be
>just a malapropistic confusion without a semantic rationale. But I
>like the suggestion by "lc" in the ECDB forum for "imminent domain":
>it's "the 'imminent' threat of government's right to take one's land."

I wrote:
>I wrote something similar here -- "Overriding the resisters does
>appear to be imminent.  Thus I believe this is an eggcorn".  [These
>are shore-holders resisting an Army Corps of Engineers project whom
>the mayor has threatened with eminent domain.]

At 6/9/2013 02:19 PM, Dan Goodman wrote:
> From Twitter:
>BringMeTheNews ‏@BringMN
>With cigarette tax eminent, sales catch fire as smokers stock up to save
>bucks http://dlvr.it/3V4HPv

This is the inverse of the "shore-taking"
example.  And in smokers' minds, the tax might
very well have been "eminent" [prominent; in the fore-frontal lobes].

Joel


At 6/13/2013 10:51 PM, Randy Alexander wrote:

>On Fri, Jun 14, 2013 at 12:20 AM, Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu> wrote:
>
> > i should have said this right away: "eggcorn" is not just another name for
> > "spelling confusion" or "word confusion".  the MWDEU entry on "eminent,
> > imminent" treats "eminent" for "imminent" as a word confusion (or possibly
> > just a spelling confusion):
> >
>
>Perhaps posting a good definition to check against might help even more.
>  Its seems to me that I more often come across descriptions of what an
>eggcorn is not than what it is.  Alas, (and sadly) even the ECDB doesn't
>come right out on the front page and say what the thing is.
>
>Here are a few definitions:
>
>Chris Waigl on the ECDB About page, quoting AZ:
>"spontaneous reshapings of known expressions", and later going on to say"The
>crucial element is that the new form makes sense: for anyone except
>lexicographers or other people trained in etymology, more sense than the
>original form in many cases."
>
>Wiktionary:
>"An idiosyncratic but
>semantically<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/semantically> motivated
>substitution of a word or phrase for a word or words that sound identical,
>or nearly so, at least in the dialect the speaker uses."
>
>Wikipedia:
>'In linguistics <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics>, an *eggcorn* is
>an idiosyncratic <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiosyncratic> substitution
>of a word or phrase for a word or words that sound similar or identical in
>the speaker's dialect (sometimes called
>oronyms<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juncture#Oronyms>).
>The new phrase introduces a meaning that is different from the original,
>but plausible in the same context, such as "old-timers' disease" for
>"Alzheimer's
>disease <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alzheimer%27s_disease>".'
>
>Dictionary.com:
>"a word or phrase that is a seemingly logical alteration of another word or
>phrase that sounds similar and has been misheard or misinterpreted,as 'old
>wise tale' for 'old wives' tale'."
>
>--
>Randy Alexander
>Xiamen, China
>Manchu studies: http://www.sinoglot.com/manchu
>Language in China (group blog): http://www.sinoglot.com/blog
>Music: http://www.metafilter.com/activity/56219/posts/music/
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org