Like “does the Pope shit in the woods?” or “that train has sailed?”

Also, what good examples can you think of?

  • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    catachresis

    Ha! Here you are answering the actual question but nobody cares!

    Amazing. I had never seen this word before.

    • wjrii@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Even then, I can’t quite find a single Linguistics term for this phenomenon, where it becomes a thing of its own or even replaces the original. ‘Eggcorn’ and ‘Malaphor’ seem to be pretty decent casual terms.