By Jonathan Whitcomb
An eggcorn is like a mouth trap: Be careful what you say or write, or it can catch your underwear.
Actually, the above are not the best egg samples of eggcorns, nor was that one, but if you’re an amateur writer they may point you in the write direction. In other words, avoid them by minding your “p” in queues.
Technically, an eggcorn is a mistake that is plausible, unlike a malapropism. For example, “Scents and Sensibility”*, as a mistake for the title of a novel by Jane Austen (“Sense and Sensibility”), seems to qualify as an eggcorn: At least some of the characters could use perfume. Even if that seems off, however, the sense of smell relates closely to the word “scent”. *Don’t let the title of a 21st century film, “Scents and Sensibility”, detract you here: People who have never heard of that film can make that mistake for the old novel.
If you had a bad afternoon shopping, the phrase “mall contempt” could be appropriate, but the original word you had been exposed to was probably “malcontent”.
A popular eggcorn is “old-timers’ disease” instead of “Alzheimer’s Disease”, although most persons probably use it humorously rather than by mistake.
Don’t feel bad if you ever discover you have made an accidental eggcorn or your spouse points it out to you. Anybody can mate a mistake.
