What are eggcorns?

Maybe someone described a friend as a “real trooper.” (The correct phrase, as it turns out, is “trouper.”) Or maybe you’ve got another think coming, which is something to think about, but not another thing coming. One of the most commonly mistaken phrases is “for all intensive purposes” instead of “for all intents and purposes.” “Moot point,” is an issue that is debatable or open to discussion, but what’s a “mute point?”

Congratulations, you’ve encountered an eggcorn!

An eggcorn is a type of linguistic error that occurs when someone mishears or misunderstands a word or phrase and substitutes a similar-sounding word or phrase that makes sense in context. The result is a new word or phrase that has a meaning that is like the original, but just slightly different.

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Origin of the term eggcorn

In 2003, British linguist Geoffrey Pullum noticed that a colleague had used the phrase “eggcorn” instead of “acorn.” Pullum found the mistake interesting, and even relatable: an egg has a similar shape to an acorn. He began researching similar errors, eventually coining the term “eggcorn” to describe them. After Merriam-Webster added “eggcorn” to its online dictionary in 2015, the idea took off. According to the esteemed dictionary, an eggcorn is:

• a word or phrase that sounds like and is mistakenly used in a seemingly logical or plausible way for another word or phrase either on its own or as part of a set expression.

Examples of Eggcorns

Eggcorns can take many forms and occur in different contexts. Here are some examples of common eggcorns:

• “For all intensive purposes” instead of “for all intents and purposes”
• “Nip it in the butt” instead of “nip it in the bud”
• “On tender hooks” instead of “on tenterhooks”
• “Ex-patriot” instead of “expatriate”
• “Expresso” instead of “espresso”
• “Break” instead of “brake” (and vice versa)
• “Hunger pains” instead of “hunger pangs”
• “Peak my interest” instead of “pique my interest”
• “Escape goat” instead of “scapegoat”
• “Wet your appetite” instead of “whet your appetite”

How are eggcorns formed?

Eggcorns happen when people hear or read a word or phrase that they don’t know or don’t understand and try to make sense of it based on what they do know. They may mishear the word or phrase, or they may not know its correct spelling or pronunciation.

Sometimes the eggcorn becomes more common or makes more sense than the original phrase. In some cases, eggcorns can even become accepted alternatives to the original words or phrases. For example, “baited breath” instead of “bated breath” has become a commonly used eggcorn, despite the fact that “bated breath” is the correct phrase. While the original phrase is grammatically and linguistically correct, the eggcorn is 99% there—and oftentimes, it ends up working just as well.

Eggcorns can also include misheard song lyrics, such as in Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze,” where many believe he sings “excuse me while I kiss this guy” instead of “excuse me while I kiss the sky.”

In this case, eggcorns belong to that same category as the mondegreen, which is a recited line or song lyric that seems to make sense, but not on paper—only in your mind. The way songs or poetry are performed out loud can lead to us mishearing things: our brains want to go one way, but the text goes in another direction, and we justify it to ourselves.

Language is sometimes unpredictable, but it’s always evolving, and eggcorns are proof of that. They show how people can take something they don’t understand and make it their own, often with amusing or unexpected results. When something that seems like mistake becomes a flourish, then it can add another angle to what you’re working on: you can easily make this linguistic mistake in your writing, but you can also embrace it to prove a humorous point (i.e., in a character’s dialogue, to reflect their own verbal tics or confusions).

Want to avoid other common writing mistakes? Learn about gerunds, how to add idioms to your work, or use irregular verbs like a pro.