Tuesday, September 16, 2008

... and for chagiggles

I heard something today during a presentation that got my attention (well, the presentation was interesting also), but which struck me at the time as just as slip of the tongue. But when I got back to the office, I searched for it. Man, was I ever surprised:

  • just for chagrins, lets just suppose that everything in this film is embellished (#)

  • That might be neat to find out just for chagrins. (#)

  • Will probably resurrect the F body and try the filter with it (just for chagrins..) (#)

etc. These from the single page of Google hits for this phrase. Not so many cites, but I was surprised that there were any at all.

I believe that per the technical definition, these aren't eggcorns; they're just plain ol' malapropisms. I suppose these cites essentially mean that some people don't know what chagrin means. That's not so surprising, I suppose; it's not a term that comes up in everyday speech.

So: probably not an evolutionary development. Just a little mutation.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Isn't a play on "just for grins and giggles," with the idea being that doing the action is likely to make one feel chagrined instead of happy?

WordzGuy said...

I'm sure that it's, you know, inspired by "just for grins," but somehow "chagrin" got mixed into the stew. The examples I found (AFAIK) don't seem to have the subtlety of turning "just for grins" on its head.

Kris H. said...

Oh, I wish I had found this blog when this was still timely. I believe this may be a mishearing of or evolution from an old expression I heard in my family, "just for shits and grins."

WordzGuy said...

Who's to say it isn't still timely? :-)

PS Nice pictures, Kris.

Michael Hill said...

I'm with "anonymous" on this one. I've heard the term used in the context "anonymous" is referring to.

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