Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eggcorn

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep/speedy keep per WP:SK, as the nomination has been withdrawn at bottom and there are no other !votes for deletion.--Kchase T 23:47, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Eggcorn

Eggcorn (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

Neologism. Google scholar and JSTOR search show zero publications that even mention "eggcorns." What this article describes falls, more or less, more appropriately in the article about mondegreens. The claim that eggcorns "make sense" while mondegreens do not is not (and can not objectively be) borne out empirically and goes completely unmentioned in the links provided (three of which are blogs). The examples can be moved to the mondegreen article. It's possible that the term eggcorn can be mentioned, but a whole article is not appropriate on Wikipedia. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 06:06, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

• Delete per nom. Charlie 06:35, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep There appears to be sufficient differences between the two to have two articles. It is a neologism and a well documented one with 76,000 Google hits. This is exactly the type of information that people come to Wikipedia for. The lack of scholarly articles makes the Wikipedia entry even more important. I have to admit the distinction appears arbitrary to me between a mondegreen and an eggcorn, but I lump them all together as malapropisms anyway, because of my ignorance. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 07:09, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Can you elaborate on what your search criterion was? "eggcorn" gets 153,000 hits and "egg corn" gets 32,100 but those could include many actual mispellings of something as eggcorn or egg corn. Searching "eggcorn" and "acorn" together gets 1,000 (which includes many mirror sites for Wikipedia). Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 07:26, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

In a Language Log post of April 9, 2004, Mark Liberman noted that there were around 200 Google hits for "egg corn" and "eggcorn". I don't think thousands of people started misspelling something else as "eggcorn" in the last 2.5 years; the huge increase is due to the currency that the concept has achieved in that short period.

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000734.html -- estmere 08:26, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• Three high quality references are all I need to be satisfied. The New York Times, New Scientist, and Psychology Today satisfy me.. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 17:54, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

  I don't think people are using the term "eggcorn" as a mistake for "acorn", they are talking about the concept. Here is an example for a one month increase for the phrase "contagious shooting" on Google:

• December 22, 2006 26,900
• November 27, 2006 27

On the day I first heard it there were 27 hits based on a New York Times article, a month later there are three orders of magnitude more. Neologisms travel fast on the Internet. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 19:16, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• Merge to Malapropism, not Mondegreen, as suggested. As discussed, Mondegreen refers to a misheard song or poem lyric, whereas eggcorn just refers to terminology. Deserves a mention, but perhaps not an entire article. Wavy G 08:28, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Okay, Keep per the others. Wavy G 07:52, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep These examples cannot be merged to the mondegreen article. According to Wikipedia's mondegreen article:

"A mondegreen...is the mishearing...of a phrase in such a way that it acquires a new meaning."^[1]

One of the ones that was brought up when discussing this point on the eggcorn talk page was "there's a bathroom on the right," a mondegreen for "there's a bad moon on the rise." Both phrases make sense, but the mondegreen doesn't make sense as a substitution for the actual line. "There's a bathroom on the right" means something considerably differnt than "there's a bad moon on the rise".

While eggcorns fit two out of three of distinguishing features of malapropisms, they don't fit all three. According to the wikipedia malapropism article, the first distinguishing feature of a malapropism is:

"The word used means something different from the word (as indicated by the context in which the word was used) the speaker or writer intended to use." ^[1]

What makes the eggcorn different, at least from my understanding, is that "the new phrase makes sense on some level". "old-timer's disease" for "Alzheimer's disease" is not a mondegreen. You can't really say that "old-timer's disease" has a different meaning than "Alzheimer's disease". These are phrases that could be substituted for each other in many places--unlike mondegreens where the substitutions don't make sense or people don't know that they don't make sense because song lyrics often never do. This can't be merged into the malapropism article--this phrase doesn't mean something different than the original phrase--not as indicated by the context--not in any context. In fact, "old-timer's disease" and most of the other eggcorn's are most similar to deliberate misnomers.

But let's take a harder one like eggcorn. Eggcorn is a misspelling for acorn and acorns are egg shaped. The "egg corn" example can't be merged into malapropism, "egg corn" does not "[have] a recognized meaning in the speaker's or writer's language." Nor can it be merged into mondegreen--there was no mishearing, this is a written example and there is no difference in meaning. Neither of these examples can be merged into either the malapropism or mondegreen article.

Oh, and in re references, LexisNexis totally kicks Google's butt. This is just a quick list of what I found by searching LexisNexis for eggcorn, but it should be more than sufficent to stop this deletion proposal. I provided links at the bottom, but they're lexis-nexis ones.

Analyzing Eggcorns and Snowclones, and Challenging Strunk and White

New York Times, June 20, 2006 Tuesday ^[2]

Eggcorns

New Scientist, August 26, 2006 ^[3]

Yours sins nearly

New Scientist, September 23, 2006 ^[4]

G2: Shortcuts: Tiny eggcorns, mighty gaffes

The Guardian, October 5, 2006 Thursday ^[5]

====Notes====

TStein 10:34, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment

I forgot to include a couple things in my previous comment.

Malapropisms just refer to words and not phrases--another reason the eggcorn article can't be merged into the malapropism article.

This isn't a neologism--there is no definition for this type of linguistic mistake. This isn't a type of mondegreen or malapropism--and it is only similar to them to "sounds like" rule of thumb that these definitions all follow. But mondegreens have to be mishearings and malapropisms have a number of limitations and this definition really fills in a missing space.

I don't know if this definition will stand up to the test of time--it is a very recent word and definition and while it has garnered some recognition, I have no idea whether or not it will be widly recognized or incorperated into speaking English. But, that's not the Wikipedia standard. If you feel that this is too new of a word for the article to not have mention of it, then mention it. We have lots of pop culture articles--the word has some recognition, this isn't a word used by one blogger, and it isn't replacing any other word so the wiki standard for article existence is much lower. TStein 11:35, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Verifiable cultural and linguistic ephemera have an important place in Wikipedia. Encyclopedias from 50 and 100 years ago tend to ignore them, making it difficult to decipher a phrase encountered during research.

When you use LexisNexis do you get to read the abstract of the article for free? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 18:03, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't know. I have full access to lexisnexis...that's why I'm working on finding links to the articles at the source. It shouldn't take me long, and I'll add some of them as references for the eggcorn article. If there is something truely notable that I can only get links that you need to pay to access (archived NYT, or lexisnexis, I'll still include the reference and the pay to access links as a curtosy. We include references with no links. These references stand alone with no links--there's no reason not to add a link that some users will be able to access. TStein 03:08, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I've added the references to the article--all as non-lexisnexis links. There was only one link outside of lexisnexis that you also had to pay to access the full article so I provided both links. All of the references are on the eggcorn article. Happy reading. TStein 03:55, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I just get the login page for the URLs not an abstract. Can you add the first paragraph of each article like I do for the New York Times. Thats allowed under fair use. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 07:05, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, for starters, if this discussion continues, can we move it to the eggcorn talk page. I watch that to, so feel free to reply to me there. This doesn't really belong here. Also, I reverted that--that reference was already on there and you added it again. I think that putting a couple lines for each link is sorta unnecessary--I like a small description or something if it's an additional reference that doesn't have a specific point, but I think it's too much otherwise. Also, which pages asked you for login links. Everything is now non lexisnexis except for one case where lexisnexis is provided as an additional link. I wasn't logged into the New York Time or The Guardian or anywhere else and I wasn't asked to. The exceptions are the New Scientist article which asks you to subscribe in order to finish reading the article, and the News-Gazette article which is located at accessmylibrary. In order to finish reading articles you can provide them with your library card information or create an account for free. TStein 08:29, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• Strong keep - it is notable and unlike the ones it is suggested to be merged into. - Lord Gravitron ^{Message | Contrib} 14:59, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Coined term for a linguisit phenomenon has multiple reliable independent refs. Edison 19:04, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
• Change to Keep due to new information presented above. Charlie 22:59, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep The eggcorn article shouldn't be merged with the malapropism article because eggcorns make sense in context while malapropisms don't. And this distinction is indeed mentioned prominently on the "About" page of the Eggcorns Database -- the very first of the three links mentioned in Aeusoes1's original proposal for deletion. Here's the relevant excerpt from the Database page:

"The criteria of how to identify eggcorns have also been clarified. Not every homophone substitution is an eggcorn. The crucial element is that the new form makes sense: for anyone except lexicographers or other people trained in etymology, more sense than the original form in many cases." http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/about/ --estmere 07:28, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• Strong keep Eggcorns have already received strong support from linguists, in spite of the newness of the term. John M Baker 15:15, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep It's a very useful term that has caught on very quickly among both linguists and hobbyists alike. I wouldn't mind merging the content into another article, but it would be completely out of place at the mondegreen article since typical usage of the terms is completely different (although it's true that at the fringes of either there are similarities). --Dlugar 01:31, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Also, Wikipedia:Avoid neologisms merely says that articles shouldn't attempt to "track the emergence and use of the term", e.g. the article shouldn't try to be the equivalent of The Eggcorn Database. However, it doesn't seem to have any problems with articles on neologisms with verifiable/reliable secondary sources. --Dlugar 01:39, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - the sign of a useful neologism is its adoption by those discussing the phenomenon as a shorthand. Eggcorn qualifies splendidly, and the Eggcorn database is a fascinating resource Kevin Marks 09:01, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
• Change to Keep - As a stubborn person and nominator of this page's deletion, even I am convinced by the new sources that this page is obviously worth keeping. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]}
• Close Discussion? Since there are now no votes for no, can this discussion be closed and the deletion and contradiction tags be removed from the eggcorn article? TStein 11:20, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.