Eggcorn

Cafe chalkboard advertising a "pre fixed" menu, an eggcorn of the French prix fixe (fixed price)

An eggcorn is the alteration of a word or phrase through the mishearing or reinterpretation of one or more of its elements,[1] 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.[2] Thus, an eggcorn is an unexpectedly fitting or creative malapropism. The autological word "eggcorn" is itself an eggcorn, derived from acorn. Eggcorns often arise as people attempt to make sense of a stock phrase that uses a term unfamiliar to them,[3] as for example replacing "Alzheimer's disease" with "old-timers' disease",[2] or William Shakespeare's "to the manner born" with "to the manor born".[1]

  1. ^ a b "eggcorn". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. Retrieved 24 May 2022. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.), sense 2
  2. ^ a b "eggcorn n.". American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (fifth ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2011. ISBN 978-0-547-04101-8.
  3. ^ Butterfield, Jeremy (2008). Damp Squid: The English Language Laid Bare. Oxford University Press. pp. 57–59. ISBN 978-0-19-923906-1.