Avoiding spelling mistakes – more eggcorns

Sometimes when we write Thai English in academic research papers and theses, if we understand why we make certain errors, we can avoid making the same mistakes in future.

Thammasat University students of linguistics may have heard of the term eggcorn. This was named by a linguist after the incorrect spelling of the common English word acorn, the single seed, inside a tough shell, of the oak tree or other trees. If we do not read a word frequently and do not have a good memory of how it looks when it is printed, then we must rely on how it sounds. Writers of Thai English often do this when they use technical vocabulary in academic writing that they may have heard an ajarn say in a seminar. So we try to guess the spelling of a word based on how we think it may be pronounced. Naturally, there are many problems with this approach, and it often goes wrong, since the pronunciation of the word may not have been in standard English or American speech. Even if it was in standard English or American speech, spelling of words often cannot be guessed by the way they are pronounced.

However, students and other writers of Thai English for academic purposes should not worry too much, because linguists enjoy eggcorns. They consider them lively and original examples of the way our brains try to make sense of the problem of language. If we have no idea of how the word acorn looks and we hear it pronounced, we may try to include a familiar word that we are sure exists, egg, even though that turns out to be incorrect. In an English class, that spelling would be marked as wrong, but in a linguistics class, an ajarn might appreciate it.

Also, eggcorns are written by native English speakers as well, not just by writers of Thai English. Anyone trying to write a word who is not sure about the spelling can write an eggcorn. Since it happens often, we may avoid feeling embarrassed or ashamed if we make this type of error, and look on it as part of a game of language.

By looking at other examples of eggcorns, we can see how our minds or the minds of other writers work when we spell words. Also we may keep in mind that the best way to be sure about how words are spelled is to read a lot in English, and also to use spell check programs and Google words whenever we are not certain, to get quick answers.

One example of an eggcorn is to write mistakenly old wise tale when what is meant is the expression old wives’ tale.

An old wives’ tale is a superstition or traditional belief that is seen as unscientific or incorrect. The term was used in English starting in the 1600s and the wives referred to are women, whether they are married or not.

The Thammasat University Library owns a copy of a noted English novel, The Old Wives’ Tale, by the author Arnold Bennett.

The novel tells the story of two English sisters from when they are young to their old age, over about 70 years. It is shelved in the Fiction Stacks of the Pridi Banomyong Library, Tha Prachan campus.

The term old wives’ tale derives from a term in Middle English that means woman but looks like the word wife. In English today, another example of a word that also takes the term wife to mean woman is the noun midwife.

As TU students in the Faculty of Allied Health Services know, a midwife is a person, usually a woman, who assists women in childbirth.

Old wives’ tales are often about health, food, and related topics. Some examples:

• People who go swimming less than one hour after eating are taking a serious risk with their health.
• People who swallow chewing gum will find that it stays in the stomach for seven years.
• Children who make funny faces may discover that their faces will freeze in this position forever.

Of course, these beliefs are not scientifically proven. However, other sayings of this nature do have some scientific reasons behind them, for example:

• Eating carrots can improve our eyesight.
• Eating some kinds of fish can be good for the brain or brain food.
• Eating honey is a good natural remedy to prevent coughing.

In making this error, people who wrote or say old wise tale instead of the correct old wives’ tales may be confused that the sayings are meant to be wise or popular wisdom. They are also old, since we do not know when most of them originated. So in a way, they are old and wise tales. But the correct term remains old wives’ tales.

To help avoid this mistake, we might consider that the term refers to more than one wife, so it took a number of old wives to create and transmit each story. That is why the apostrophe in the expression appears after the plural term wives, as wives’.

If we think of a group of old wives, or women, then we will be less likely to commit this eggcorn.

A further example of an eggcorn is when people make the error of writing the word magnaphone when they mean the correct term, megaphone.

The noun megaphone means an instrument that is often held in the hand for making the human voice louder. Reportedly, the American inventor Thomas Alva Edison created this term from two Ancient Greek words meaning great and voice. So a megaphone makes the voice greater.

As often in the case of eggcorns, there is a logical reason for the error by people who write magnaphone instead of the right term, megaphone. The letters magna mean great or big in Latin, so there are some words in English that do begin with these letters, such as magnanimity and magnate.

If we Google the wrong word, magnaphone, we will see that it applies to brand names of items for sale, but not for nouns or general terms. There are many more words in English that start with the letters mega, for example:

• megabyte
• megacycle
• megadose
• megahertz
• megalomaniacal
• megavolt
• megawatt

and many others. If we associate the noun megaphone with these other terms starting with the letters mega, we will probably avoid the error of using the eggcorn magnaphone.

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)