Stylistic

Link: http://www.usingenglish.com/glossary/eggcorn.html

I'm just testing the bookmarket thingie. Anyway -- eggcorns! (See the attached link.) No, it's not a dessert -- though it sounds delicious -- but a grammatical term for words used by mistake that sound the same as the word that should have been used. Or as the site puts it:

Eggcorns are words or phrases that are used by mistake, usually because they are homophones or sound similar to the original words. People often write 'wet your appetite', while the original expression is 'whet your appetite', but the two words sound the same.

Okay, for some reason the buttons don't work in the bookmarklet. Whatever.

My eagle eye spotted this little grammar mistake in yet another pity-stroking article about Katrina "victims" screwing up their lives:

“What am I supposed to do — leave my daughter and my grandkids on the street?” said an emotional Priscilla Mercadel, 57, whose eyes were red from sobbing last week.

Is it any wonder that the media is so easily taken in by nonsense that a normal person (that is, not a "journalist") wouldn't accept as gospel from a four year old, when they can't even use the English language correctly? "Sobbing" is something you do with your vocal chords. The sentence should have read "...whose eyes were red from weeping" or "... whose voice was hoarse from sobbing." This sort of thing crops up all over the place and it drives me crazy.

(Via Kathy Shaidle.)