< Back to Front Page Text size +

Mr. Boffo lays an eggcorn

Posted by Jan Freeman August 15, 2007 11:41 AM

Today's "Mr. Boffo" strip has a new eggcorn candidate for Chris Waigl's online collection.

Boffo.jpg

The text reads: "It's all about people. Money is only a bi-product you get when you squeeze them hard enough and long enough."

I had never seen bi-product for byproduct, but it's a logical enough mistake: Here, Mr. B (as corporate executive) is interpreting by-product -- an incidental outcome of a process -- as bi-product, one of two simultaneous results. (But what is the second product he refers to -- simply sadistic pleasure?)

This by- prefix, meaning "aside, apart from the main issue," is fairly uncommon now; an illegitimate child, for instance, is no longer called a by-blow, as Fielding's Tom Jones was. But we still have byplay and bypass to remind us of why it's byproduct.

Biproduct is also a real term, says Wikipedia, but it's not exactly a household word: "In category theory and its applications to mathematics, a biproduct is a generalisation of the notion of direct sum that makes sense in any preadditive category."

All right, then. But I suspect the mathematical biproduct is too arcane to be tempting writers into careless misspellings. In Mister Boffo's use, at least, biproduct has all the marks of a genuine eggcorn.


add your comment
Required
Required (will not be published)

This blogger might want to review your comment before posting it.

About brainiac What's happening in the world of ideas.
contributors
Joshua Glenn is a Boston-based writer, editor, and multimedia producer.
archives

browse this blog

by category