Egg Corns

An eggcorn is what happens when someone tries to use a word or expression that they've heard, but never seen written down. The name comes from someone calling an acorn an "eggcorn." You can learn more here. I will be posting eggcorns, mangled idioms, and other examples of language that make me laugh or make my head hurt.

My personal tumblr is unicornery.

Mail me: ms_blue_sky @ me.com

November 9, 2011

Educational Eggcorns: Anchors Away!

languageshellyeah:

I am guilty of this one. We have all heard the term Anchors Away but did you know it is actually ‘Anchors Aweigh’? The same goes for:

Weigh anchor and weighing in.

This is a common mistake and has been sighted in professional publications:

“Starting in April, the 120-passenger Clipper Odyssey will way anchor and leave Singapore for an intriguing 16-day journey to the islands of the Philippines.” (Cost: $7,990.) (TIME Asia)

“Waying in on buying new or old homes.” (Medill News Service, Feb. 15, 2005)

(In linguistics, an eggcorn is an idiosyncratic substitution of a word or phrase for a word or words that sound similar or identical in the speaker’s dialect.)

6 months ago • 2 notes

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