My thanks go to Merl Reagle, editor of the crossword puzzle in The Washington Post’s Sunday magazine, who practically wrote this blog post for me.
I had intended to write a follow-up to pieces I posted earlier on mispronunciations, misspellings and malapropisms. Then Sunday’s puzzle beat me to it, using something Reagle called “eggcorns.”
Spoiler alert: If you haven’t done the Sunday puzzle and intend to, you will want to skip over this for now.
Eggcorns, Reagle explains, are things people say and write that are technically incorrect but have a logic of their own. For example, the business located to the right of yours is “next store.” Get it?
In the puzzle, the clues are what make the incorrect phrases or spellings correct. I will leave it to you to read those in the crossword itself. Here I will list a few of the answers as examples of commonly misspelled or mis-uttered phrases. We should take note, as I suspect we’ve all made at least one of these errors in our lifetimes. Recognize any?
- wet one’s appetite
- butt naked
- hone in on
- sacreligious
- bellweather
- laxadaisical
- expatriot
- Here, here
- unchartered waters
- a tough road to hoe
If any of these looks correct to you, see me after class and I will tell you what it is supposed to be.
Word Nymph 
Ooh. Those were goodies!
Why don’t we try-and-do [sic] something about these eggcorns before they become too prolific [sic]?
Forgive my ignorance, but I have never heard bellweather. Please explain…
The dictionary defines bellwether (no a) as a leader of a movement or activity; also, a leading indicator of future trends. You hear it a lot in political discussions, especially around elections. Florida was a “belwether state” in 2000, as was Ohio in 2004 (if I have my years correct).
The crossword puzzle clue on that one was “indicator of the winds of change.”
Maresee dotes and doesy dotes and little ams zeedivey! or not?
Actually I mentioned that one in a previous post https://wordnymph.com/2010/04/27/the-ants-are-my-friends/ on April 27th.
not exactly I see. I should not type before I think and I should read the directions thoroughly 🙂
May be the same reason I keep telling myself I should not blog before coffee.
I beggar to differ. Honed in on has come to be accepted.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/09/dont-try-to-hone-in-on-a-copyeditor.html
Dear beggar, I suspect it was accepted because the authorities gave in. Look next for irregardless.
Also, this list was published in 2010, and the New Yorker piece was written in 2012. Perhaps the rules went to crap in the interim.