Where it sits
If the substitution makes no sense, it's a malapropism. The logic is the qualifying criterion.
Tell it apart
| Aspect | Eggcorn | Folk etymology |
|---|---|---|
| Scale | One speaker | A community |
| Becomes standard | Rarely | Often |
| Makes sense | Must | Must |
| Named | 2003 | 19th century |
Folk etymology reanalyses a word's origin across a whole speech community — 'Jerusalem artichoke' from Italian girasole. An eggcorn is one speaker's phonetically-driven, locally sensible substitution. Same mechanism, different scale.
What it doesn't mean
He wrote the post that raised the question, on 23 September 2003. Geoffrey Pullum supplied the name a week later, in an update to it. The popular story credits the wrong person for the wrong act.
Eggcorns require both phonological closeness AND semantic justifiability. Malapropisms are phonetically close too — 'allegory' for 'alligator' is the standard example — but they land on nonsense rather than on a reading you could defend. An eggcorn has to be defensible.
What it really means
A woman wrote egg corns where she meant acorns, and a linguist noticed that this was not quite any of the errors that already had names.
It wasn't a malapropism — those also swap in a similar-sounding word, but produce nonsense ('a nice derangement of epitaphs'). It wasn't a mondegreen — those are mishearings that produce a new phrase, charming precisely because it doesn't have to make any sense of the original. And it wasn't quite folk etymology, which operates across a whole speech community rather than in one person's head.
Because egg corn makes sense. An acorn is a small, hard, egg-shaped seed. If you'd only ever heard the word, egg corn is a reasonable reconstruction — and that defensibility is precisely what makes it a category of its own.
Mark Liberman raised the question on 23 September 2003. Geoffrey Pullum supplied the name a week later, on the 30th, suggesting they be called egg corns — explicitly, in his words, in the metonymic tradition of mondegreen: named after a specimen of themselves.
(The popular telling credits Liberman with the coinage. He asked the question; Pullum answered it.)
The test is the logic. Deep-seeded for deep-seated — plausible, since convictions do get planted. For all intensive purposes — nearly defensible. Old-timers' disease for Alzheimer's — heartbreakingly reasonable. Every eggcorn is a small piece of independent reasoning, arriving at the wrong answer for good reasons.
Where it comes from
English — from the specimen itself: 'acorn' reanalysed
The OED's own etymology observes that acorns are, after all, seeds which are somewhat egg-shaped — so the reanalysis is semantically defensible, which is the whole definition.
- 23 September 2003
Mark Liberman posts on Language Log about a woman writing 'egg corns' for 'acorns', asking what to call the phenomenon.
- 30 September 2003
Liberman's update: 'Geoff Pullum suggests that if no suitable term already exists for cases like this, we should call them egg corns, in the metonymic tradition of mondegreen.'
In real life
- Old-timers' disease for Alzheimer's disease: wrong, but it still points at old age, which is why it feels defensible to the person writing it.
- Free reign for free rein: the rein belongs to horse-riding, but a monarch reigning freely makes a sense of its own, so the swap survives proofreading.
- In one foul swoop for in one fell swoop: fell (cruel) has dropped out of everyday English, and foul slides into its place with a meaning that nearly fits.
Questions
Q01What's the actual definition?
The OED gives it as an alteration of a word or phrase through the mishearing or reinterpretation of one or more of its elements as a similar-sounding word. The crucial extra requirement is that the result makes its own sense.
Q02What are common examples?
'Deep-seeded' for deep-seated; 'for all intensive purposes' for intents and purposes; 'bone apple tea' for bon appétit; 'old-timers' disease' for Alzheimer's. Each one is defensible if you didn't know better.
Q03Why 'in the metonymic tradition of mondegreen'?
Because both terms are named after a specimen of themselves. Pullum said so explicitly when he proposed the name — mondegreen comes from a mondegreen, and eggcorn comes from an eggcorn.