Monday, 28 June 2021

Would the heckers like

I'm not sure if this counts as an eggcorn, which is a phrase that is reinterpreted based on some apparent meaning. It can often reveal some aspect of a speaker's accent or grammar that can be interesting to a linguist. One I like is 'taken for granite', an eggcorn for 'taken for granted', partly because for me this is nowhere near phonetically similar. This one is famous enough that people use it to make jokes, like the cartoon Rick and Morty, and I've written about it before

The reinterpretation makes sense, because it could be something like 'set in stone' (hence granite), and it shows that some varieties have several phonological things that I don't, such as the quality of the first vowel being identical in those words, and the reduction of /nt/ to /n/, and something about the final sound as well. 

So I don't know if this is an eggcorn or just a more general kind of reinterpretation. This image of a wind turbine with wilting sails comes with a caption saying,

I told em, you gotta water these things every day, would they listen? would the heckers like

Image of a wind turbine with drooping sails, and the caption 'I told them, you gotta water these things every day. Would they listen? Would the heckers like.'

The phrase, as I understand it, is Would they heck as like. Therefore, the reanalysis here is from something that means 'They would be as likely as heck to do that' to something like 'The heckers wouldn't do that'. 

A bit more formally, the original is Would they [heck as like] where [heck as like] is an expletive replacing the verb listen - compare Would they fuck, or Would they my arse. The reanalysis (assuming this is the right way round!) is Would [the heckers] like, where heck is part of the subject the heckers (compare the fuckers), the verb is just elided (not pronounced because it's understandable from the previous phrase) and like is a final particle giving something like emphasis. 

This only works if you typically reduce they quite a bit, and also if you have a non-rhotic accent (don't pronounce the 'r' in heckers). I suspect the former is more likely if you also drop the h so you get a glide between the and 'eck(ers), but that is just my speculation. Oh and also it relies on the extreme flexibility of expletives and their ability to work as any part of speech! 

1 comment:

  1. I agree the correct form would have been "would they heck as like", but I think the misheard/eggcorn version is "would THEY heckers like" so it's still performing the same function as "fuck" or "my arse", but with like added to the end as in "quick like". I'm from Wigan and grew up using this expression. Did I realise it was "heck as like"? Did I heckers like!

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