While reading things on the internet, I have discovered some word oddities. Actually, by odd, I mean they are using the wrong words. In the two cases I will cite here, they used actual words that sound like the word they wanted.
Does anyone know what the name for this phenomenon is? The closest I can come is that of the mondegreen. I did a wordsbybob blog post on mondegreens earlier in this blog.
Example 1: Someone said they felt like “crawling up in a ball.” They clearly meant curling up in a ball.
Example 2: Another person said while commenting on the good effort of someone that they did “an admiral” job. I am ninety-nine percent sure they really wanted to say admirable. No offense to anyone who served in the Navy!
My guess, and it is only a guess, is that these people are not great readers. They have probably heard these terms–or misheard them.
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Exploring the use, misuse and humor of words 