For all intents and purposes…

In order to navigate this thing we call The World, with all of its complexities, with only our peanut brains to guide us, we often rely on mental shortcuts to prevent the simplest of interactions and conversations from lasting hours on end.  These shortcuts can range anywhere from stereotyping to assumptions.  Assumptions about the way one’s language works can lead to especially hilarious happenings.

I was lazily making my way through an article in the New York Times Magazine, when the author used the phrase “for all intents and purposes”.  My eyes kept on, continuing dutifully down through the sentence, when my brain hiccuped, calling for the reading equivalent of a double take.  Repeating this phrase, for all intents and purposes, for all intents and purposes, for all intents and purposes, my brain finally spit out a conclusion – by golly, this person had meant to write “for all intensive purposes”.  Slowly but surely a wave of self-doubt crept up my spine as the other possible explanation made it’s way to the forefront: or, for my entire life, I had meant to write for all intents and purposes.  Frantic, I ran this possibility by the first available person.  It was true!  I have, in public, in speeches, in professional writing , been erroneously misusing this phrase.

One word came to mind immediately: eggcorn.  I first learned of eggcorns in reading Micheal Erard’s “Um…:Slips, Stumbles and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean.” The term eggcorn denotes a word or phrase which a person misuses that sounds nearly identical to the correct word or phrase.  On top of this, the eggcorn can be explained by the user, who will insist that they cannot be be wrong because their eggcorn makes sense.  Eggcorn itself is an eggcorn.  Eggcorn is the eggcorn of acorn.  An acorn is, of course, the nut of an oak tree.  A nut is, at some level, the egg the momma tree lays in order to produce baby oak trees, and as opposed to the egg of a chicken, the egg of the oak tree is shaped like a corn kernel.  Put these descriptors together, and voilà – eggcorn.

Eggcorns are a great linguistic phenomenon.  There are many different sites that list them, as well as the story of their discovery and revelations.  Notable eggcorns from The Eggcorn Database:

• In lame man’s terms
• Learn by route
• Make a pack with the devil
• Never regions

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