world renouned

[Laurence Horn]

On Nov 10, 2013, at 10:06 AM, W Brewer wrote:

> Did a double-take. <<<world renouned>>> 2.86M ghits vs. <<<world
> renowned>>> 89.6M ghits (plus or minus hyphen).
>     (Picture this: An apocalypse of anomic aphasia results in the
> replacement of all the world's nouns by renouned lexicographers.)
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

Reminds me of one of my favorite eggcorns from the early years (of our discussions of them), which I first came across a decade ago in an online movie review of "Nurse Betty":

==================
Betty returns home in time to feed her non-deserving husband [Del], who does not even acknowledge her birthday. She is supposed to go out with her girlfriend for a birthday celebration, and unbenounced to Del, she has taken the Buick LeSabre that he had firmly denied her from the lot to go out in style.
==================

The etymology is from "(unbe)known(st)", the pronunciation (and semantics) from "renown", and the spelling (and pronunciation, and morphological structure) from "(PFX+)nounce(d)" as in "announced". The three roots are in fact unrelated, _renown_ being cognate with "name" and "noun".  <30K raw google hits for "unbenounced", 20K for "unbenounced to", including a number from puzzled dictionary-searchers wondering why they can't find it.

LH

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