Tuesday, September 19, 2006

It's French for 'Pear Again'

For the severalth time, I came across the bizarre misspelling "repoire," for rapport.

7 comments:

Nicole said...

Wow. I have never seen that, but I can find it all over the place online. Love it.

Bill said...

To be an eggcorn, I think, it would have to use existing words -- if people thought "rapport" was "rap poor" or something.

Unknown said...

On the list of misspelled French words, this one's really not so bad. It doesn't compare to "walla" or "buku," at least.

Bill's right about it not being an eggcorn—it's a simple misspelling and not, as Wikipedia says, "an idiosyncratic substitution of a word or phrase for a word or words that sound identical, or nearly so."

Bill said...

But it is bizarre, with its made-up fancy Frenchism, unlike the simple phonetic dumbness of "walla" or "buku."

Unknown said...

I just barely followed the link to the Google search—twent-one thousand hits?! That really is bizarre, especially since the misspelling is less phonetic than the real spelling.

And on top of that, oir is almost never pronounced as or in English. C'est vraiment bizarre.

noneemac said...

Out here in LA, I'm sure it won't be long before some culinary hotshot transforms said phonetic dumbness into tomorrow's must-see brasserie. Buku celebrities, buku bux.

OldSchoolD15 said...

I just can't wait to use "severalth" at the very next opportunity.