Our latest language column explains why “eggcorns”, a particular kind of mishearing, are often a sign not of idiocy but of ingenuity
Yet according to Google Books, “honed in on” is about three-quarters as common in published works as “homed in on”. Merriam-Webster, a dictionary publisher, considers “hone in” an established variant, even if “home in” is better . What makes “hone in” so tempting?
A malapropism is another kind of misunderstanding—attempting to use a posh word but choosing a similar-sounding term instead. It was named after Mrs Malaprop, a character in Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s play “The Rivals” of 1775; she reached for refined words and inevitably found the wrong one, saying things like “the very pineapple of politeness” for “pinnacle”. The song “A Word a Day” from “Top Banana”, a musical, features malapropisms in reverse.
Some eggcorns are especially enticing because they make more sense than the phrases they replace. Consider “death nail”, which is more plausible on its face than “death knell”. Nails go along with death , and some people may not know of any other kind of knell . So if you chuckle when you read “the point is mute”, “in one foul swoop” or “to change tact”, ask yourself whether you could give precise definitions of “moot”, “fell” or “tack”. The speakers replacing them with more common words are in a way the opposite of Mrs Malaprop; rather than trying to show off, they are often making opaque expressions simpler.
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