Toddler eggcorning
Little kids are given to misanalyses (any number of children have been
reported answering the command "Behave!" with "I
AM
being have") and mishearings ("Olive, the other reindeer" in the
pestilential Rudolph song), and occasionally they branch out into
eggcorning. As, apparently, in this report from Elizabeth
Daingerfield Zwicky about her daughter Opal (2 years, 9 months):
Opal has a stuffed jaguar, which she
says is "Jaggy the Jagwater". She's very consistent about "jagwater",
which apparently makes sense to her in some way "jaguar" doesn't. She
doesn't correct me when I say "jaguar" but she gets that patient look...
Oh yes, that look. I have my way and you have yours, and mine's
better, but I'm not going to dispute it right now.
zwicky at-sign csli period stanford period edu
Posted by Arnold Zwicky at December 19, 2006 11:27 AM