On Oct 23, 2005, at 4:00 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
Well, "baton down the hatches" seems to be an Australianism, as if you Google it, a very large proportion of the results are Australian in origin, and none have anything to do with articles about Baton Rouge. This is what's called by linguists and "eggcorn" -- that is, a homophone or near-homophone that replaces the original knowingly, with a conscious rationalization of the otherwise nonsensical new definition. It often happens with older, less common terms that get replaced with more familiar ones, and then rationalized to fit. "Batten/baton" is a perfect example, and not in the Eggcorn Database: http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/
That's a great site! David B, watch out for your dinner guests! (Armed with new trivia, he stalks into the night, stomach rumbling, to bore countless hordes witless!)
I remember reading a great short story (fiction) in Harper's a couple of years ago, where an English teacher was trying to explain the flaw in a student writing "the death knoll" instead of "the death knell" (shades of "the grassy knoll" from which Kennedy was shot, the teacher postulated.) The class put it to a vote, and decided that "the death knoll" sounded better, therefore it was right.
That wasn't the point of the story, but I laughed and laughed. OK, as you were, everyone. Christopher _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
