You’ve said“for all intensive purposes”before. We know you have. There’s a name for that, and it’s not just“being wrong.”It’s called an eggcorn, a phrase where a similar-sounding word sneaks in and takes over. The term comes from“acorn,”which enough people pronounced as“eggcorn”that linguists officially adopted it. BuzzFeed contributor Andrew Ziegler built a poll around the concept, asking readers how many common words and phrases they’ve been saying wrong their entire lives.
The list runs 18 deep, and it’s stacked with heavy hitters. It’s“nipped in the bud,”not“nipped in the butt.”It’s“all intents and purposes,”not“intensive.”You wait with“bated breath,”you“champ at the bit,”something gets“jury-rigged,”and it’s“duct tape”until the end of time. Polls like this one are sneaky, because you start scrolling thinking you’ll score a perfect run and end up at question four questioning your entire education.
The best part is how universal it is. Everyone has at least one eggcorn they’ve been carrying around for years, fully confident, totally wrong. So what’s yours? Drop it in the comments and let’s all feel a little better about ourselves.
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Local Lawton
Local Lawton is a contributor to LocalBeat, covering local news and community stories.