Cafe chalkboard advertising a "pre fixed" menu, an eggcorn of the French prix fixe (fixed price)
An eggcorn is the alteration of a word or phrase through the mishearing or reinterpretation of one or more of its elements, creating a new phrase that is plausible when used in the same context.
The term (originally egg corn) was coined in September 2003 by Geoffrey Pullum in response to an article by Mark Liberman on the website Language Log. The article discussed the case of a woman who had used the phrase egg corn for acorn, and noted that this type of substitution lacked a name. Pullum suggested using egg corn as a label.
Language change
Eggcorns often arise as people attempt to make sense of a stock phrase that uses a term unfamiliar to them, as for example replacing "Alzheimer's disease" with "old-timers' disease", or William Shakespeare's "to the manner born" with "to the manor born".
Eggcorns often arise when people attempt to use analogy and logic to make sense of an expression – often a stock one – that includes a term that is not meaningful to them by swapping in a similar-sounding word that is more familiar. For example, the stock expression "in one fell swoop" might be replaced by "in one foul swoop", the infrequently used adjective "fell" (for "fierce", "cruel", or "terrible") being replaced with the more common word "foul" in order to convey the cruel/underhand meaning of the phrase as the speaker understands it.
Eggcorns are of interest to linguists as they not only afford a view into language change as it occurs, but can also shed light on how and why the change takes place.
Eggcorns are similar to but distinct from several other linguistic expressions:
Where a folk etymology is a change in the form of a word caused by widespread misunderstanding of the word's etymology, an eggcorn may be limited to one person rather than being used generally within a speech community.
A malapropism generally derives its effect from a comic misunderstanding of the user, often creating a nonsensical phrase; an eggcorn on the other hand is a substitution that exhibits creativity or logic.
A mondegreen is a misinterpretation of a word or phrase, often within the lyrics of a specific song or other type of performance, and need not make sense within that context. An eggcorn must still retain something of the original meaning, as the speaker understands it, and may be a replacement for a poorly understood phrase rather than a mishearing.
In a pun, the speaker or writer intentionally creates a humorous effect, whereas an eggcorn may be used or created by someone who is unaware that the expression is non-standard.
Where the spoken form of an eggcorn sounds the same as the original, it becomes a type of homophone.
↑ While the misspelling "jackarse" (or "jack-arse") is older, it seems to have become more common after the Jackass media franchise began screening, in 2000. For example, the historian David Swift mentioned "a lad from Bootle who always referred to the TV show Jackass as Jack-arse, lest he be accused of some American affectation." (David Swift, 2025, Scouse Republic An Alternative History of Liverpool, London: Little Brown; p.158.)
Liberman, Mark, and Geoffrey K. Pullum (2006), Far from the Madding Gerund and Other Dispatches from Language Log. Wilsonville, OR: William, James & Co.
