Ancient eggcorns
The word eggcorn was originally proposed in a LLOG post almost 20 years ago — "Egg corns: folk etymology, malapropism, mondegreen, ???", 9/23/2003. And the word is now recognized by most current English dictionaries and other relevant sources, which gloss it variously, e.g. —
- the Oxford English Dictionary, ("An alteration of a word or phrase through the mishearing or reinterpretation of one or more of its elements as a similar-sounding word")
- Merriam-Webster: ("a word or phrase that sounds like and is mistakenly used in a seemingly logical or plausible way for another word or phrase either on its own or as part of a set expression")
- Wiktionary: ("A word or phrase that sounds like and is mistakenly used in a seemingly logical or plausible way for another word or phrase either on its own or as part of a set expression")
- the Collins English Dictionary: ("a malapropism or misspelling arising from similarity between the sound of the misspelled or misused word and the correct one in the accent of the person making the mistake")
- the American Heritage Dictionary, ("A series of words that result from the misunderstanding of a word or phrase as some other word or phrase having a plausible explanation")
- Wikipedia: ("An eggcorn is the alteration of a phrase through the mishearing or reinterpretation of one or more of its elements, creating a new phrase having a different meaning from the original but which still makes sense and is plausible when used in the same context")
Those sources cite the examples eggcorn, to the manor born, old-timers' disease, ex-patriot, for all intensive purposes, feeble position, free reign, wipe board, card shark, and so on. Many more can be found at Chris Waigl's Eggcorn Database.
This morning, I'm appealing for help in answering two questions: What are some examples of eggcorns in other languages? And what are the earliest documented (or reconstructed) examples?
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