Statue of limitations *snicker*

March 16, 2006 7:49 AM

This askme question contains a great eggcorn. Should it be given an eggcorn tag, or would that be too meta?
posted by alms to MetaFilter-Related at 7:49 AM (34 comments total)

That's a malapropism, not an eggcorn.
posted by rxrfrx at 7:56 AM on March 16, 2006

if you're talking about "juristiction," I'd say it's a misspelling, and not a "great" anything.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 8:10 AM on March 16, 2006

It's too meta. Or rather my suspicion is that me, mathowie and the original poster have no idea what an eggcorn is (though I do, now) and drawing attention to people's spelling mistakes is generally not a great idea.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:10 AM on March 16, 2006

Kirth, I was referring to "statue of limitations."

rxrfrx, why don't you think that's an eggcorn?
posted by alms at 8:18 AM on March 16, 2006

For all intensive purposes, that is an eggcorn.
posted by iconomy at 8:23 AM on March 16, 2006

It's not an egg corn because 'statue' was almost certainly not the word chosen by the writer. It's a simple and inadvertent misspelling.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 8:27 AM on March 16, 2006

From the links you posted, my impression is:

eggcorn: humorous misspelling of a word to generate a homonym that's not really a word

malapropism: substitution of an incorrect quasi-homonym that really is a word

so "statue of limitations" is just a malapropism, not an eggcorn.
posted by rxrfrx at 8:27 AM on March 16, 2006

monju_bosatsu, it appears in both the question and the tags. I don't think it was a misspelling.
posted by amro at 8:37 AM on March 16, 2006

monju_bosatsu, I agree with amro that it's likely a genuine lexical goof, eggcorn or not. I've seen and heard people blithely use "statue" for "statute".

I mean, I'd just assume err on the sight of caution.
posted by cortex at 8:40 AM on March 16, 2006

Well, jessamyn says it's too meta to tag either way, so it's a moo point.
posted by amro at 8:43 AM on March 16, 2006

"mute point" is far more common though.
posted by rxrfrx at 8:48 AM on March 16, 2006

True, but "moo point" makes me laugh.
posted by amro at 8:52 AM on March 16, 2006

My boss did the "mute point" thing recently, and I cringed, but I couldn't imagine a way to tell her, so I just kept it to myself. I beleive this was the wisest course of action.
posted by raedyn at 8:54 AM on March 16, 2006

Especially since I can't be bothered to proofread my own typing before hitting 'post' I'm hardly perfect myself. (But close. So so close.)
posted by raedyn at 8:54 AM on March 16, 2006

What about my bear hands?
posted by driveler at 9:06 AM on March 16, 2006

monju_bosatsu, it appears in both the question and the tags. I don't think it was a misspelling.

I didn't notice it in the tags, so maybe you're right. My conclusion was passed on my own tendency to misspell 'statute' as 'statue' about a quarter of the time I write it, which is several times per day. It's an easy mistake to make when typing.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 9:38 AM on March 16, 2006

It's a doggydog world.
posted by crunchland at 9:58 AM on March 16, 2006

What about my bear arms?
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 10:22 AM on March 16, 2006

Several of my first year law students use "statue" in place of "statute" apparently unaware that "statute" is a word at all, much less the word they actually want to use. Those are the students that I advise to remove "statue" and "pubic" from their spellcheck dictionaries.

which contributes very little to the question of tagging eggcorns, but might lend to the argument that it wasn't a typo.
posted by crush-onastick at 10:24 AM on March 16, 2006

What about your parking break?
posted by Kirth Gerson at 10:46 AM on March 16, 2006

Here's a fresh AxMe malapropism!
posted by rxrfrx at 11:13 AM on March 16, 2006

I can't find the malaprop. Is this a mismalapropriation?
posted by cortex at 12:16 PM on March 16, 2006

dammit cortex

I'll bet you $1 that it said "at my daughter's school, the principle has asked"

but now it doesn't.
posted by rxrfrx at 12:19 PM on March 16, 2006

If it's any comfort, principal did stand out as something that could have been a malapropism if it hadn't not been.

But I think we're all a little too excited about this hunt. Bad case of malapriapism going around.
posted by cortex at 12:22 PM on March 16, 2006

I demand testimony from Jessamyn on this matter.
posted by rxrfrx at 12:24 PM on March 16, 2006

*attempts to turn around and leave, knocks over some vases*
posted by rxrfrx at 12:25 PM on March 16, 2006

Hi sorry, yeah that was me. AskMe questions tend to go better when the typo isn't the first thing that someone notices. Sometimes people flag typos in FPPs with "other" I was going to note that I'd fixed the typo once there were a few responses.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 12:37 PM on March 16, 2006

it appears in both the question and the tags. I don't think it was a misspelling.

A misspelling is a misunderstanding of how to spell a word and can easily be manifested twice. A TYPO is something which occurs in isolated instances, by mistake. You're confusing these.

For all intensive purposes, that is an eggcorn.

Haha - good one!

malapropism:
"Ludicrous misuse of a word, especially by confusion with one of similar sound."

Can we call that settled?

Worth a MeTa thread? Fuck no. Worth a tag? I don't really think so in any case. Not that funny. Plus, the tags are mainly for the author to set. Having an admin set one that makes fun of the author is just wrong. It's the author's thread. Sometimes admins add supplementary tags, but this is wrong. If anything, they should correct the spelling rather than point out the error. But even that's beyond their calling.
posted by scarabic at 11:21 PM on March 16, 2006

A misspelling is a misunderstanding of how to spell a word and can easily be manifested twice. A TYPO is something which occurs in isolated instances, by mistake.

Thanks, scarabic. I had been looking for a clear statement of the distinction.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:25 AM on March 17, 2006

eggcorn: humorous misspelling of a word to generate a homonym that's not really a word

[pedantic]

No - an eggcorn involves using the wrong word because of a mistaken analysis of how it could have meaning in the context of the sentence. It's used in error, but (crucially) it sort of makes sense - an acorn looks kinda like an egg, so "eggcorn" seems a reasonable name for it. It's basically a malapropism with a reason.

Statue of limitations, I think, doesn't qualify, because there's no reasoning (as far as I can tell) behind the use of "statue". It is in the eggcorn database, but personally I can't see where the re-analysis is supposed to be happening.

[/pedantic]
posted by flashboy at 4:49 AM on March 17, 2006

*awards flashboy gold star*
posted by languagehat at 6:51 AM on March 17, 2006

You. People. Are. Nerds.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 7:18 AM on March 17, 2006

an eggcorn involves using the wrong word because of a mistaken analysis of how it could have meaning in the context of the sentence. It's used in error, but (crucially) it sort of makes sense - flashboy

You get a lot of that when people are just learning a language. (Like my 3 year old, for instance)
posted by raedyn at 7:49 AM on March 17, 2006

It is in the eggcorn database, but personally I can't see where the re-analysis is supposed to be happening.

Statue of Limitations.
posted by alms at 9:49 AM on March 17, 2006