Editor's Corner

I was reminded the other day of eggcorns, and it has been a few years since we talked about them. What are they? Here is the definition from Merriam-Webster:

An eggcorn is a word or phrase that is mistakenly used for another word or phrase because it sounds similar and seems logical or plausible. Take the things that fall from oak trees in the fall. They’re acorns, but they sometimes get called eggcorns. And why not? They’re kind of egg-shaped, and they are the metaphorical eggs from which new oak trees hatch—hence, eggcorn.

The term was coined by linguist Geoffrey Pullum on the Language Log blog back in 2003, and it’s been increasingly used in the years since.

My personal favorite is “escape goat” instead of “a scapegoat.” Partly because this is what I think of when I hear “escape goat”:

In honor of the getaway goat, I looked up another set of eggcorns. These are from NPR.org, but I wasn’t able to include the list because we don’t have access to their website via work. You can always look it up from home, but in the meantime, here are some that I picked out:

I hope that you have a lovely Spring day and don’t need your underbrella!

Kara Church

Pronouns: she/her/hers

Technical Editor, Advisory

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