The Snow Squirrel and His Eggcorn

Huh? Yes, you read that right. I know it’s confusing, but so are most eggcorns. And just what is an eggcorn? Well, I guess you could say it’s a very creative, albeit incorrect, way of hearing and repeating a common word or phrase. As you may have guessed, “eggcorn” had been used in place of “acorn” which led to the term.

The Eggcorn Database is filled with the most wonderful, entertaining word blunders online. The database is searchable and you can even add your own eggcorns via the Contribute thread at the forum. Just do a quick search for your eggcorn and if it isn’t listed, register at the forum and contribute. Here are my contributions, still waiting to be added to the DB:

Snow squirrel instead of snow squall. As far as I know, this is still be used because I don’t think anyone ever told him it was incorrect.

Move One’s Valves instead of move one’s bowels. Same guy that gave us the snow squirrel.

Out of Content instead of out of context. My former boss used this one so often I finally told him it was wrong but he kept using it anyway. And he used it in the wrong context, too! I wish I’d written down all his eggcorns. Every time he tried to sound intellegent, he laid an eggcorn.

If you enjoyed those then you’ll want to browse through the Eggcorn Database. There are over 500 of these gems listed.

Enjoy!