For example, English speakers commonly mix up your/you’re or there/their/they’re. I’m curious about similar mistakes in other languages.

  • RufusLoacker@feddit.it
    9·
    11 months ago

    Wait, the resemblance thing is also used in other languages: “spitting image” in English, for example, and “copia sputata” in Italian. I’m actually wondering for the first time where it comes from, so maybe there’s a reason for the Portuguese saying to be related to spit

    • tamal3@lemmy.world
      3·
      11 months ago

      Excellent comment. I’ve tried to look this up, but no dice… Anyone have insights?

    • Lvxferre@lemmy.ml
      3·
      11 months ago

      I think that there is some semantic association between spitting and copying, that all three languages are using. (I wonder how modern it is; photocopy machines spitting copies come to my mind.)

      However in Portuguese it might be also because most people don’t know the reference of the original saying (the marble sculptures of that Tuscan city), so they parse it as a phonetically similar saying. And in quick speech they do sound similar, e.g. for me:

      • esculpido em Carrara - [(e)skʊ(w).'pi.dẽ.kɐ̥.'hä.ɾɐ]
      • [cópia] cuspida e escarrada - [kʊs.'pi.des.kɐ̥.'hä.dɐ]
      • RufusLoacker@feddit.it
        4·
        11 months ago

        From a quick search that didn’t provide anything really insightful, it seems that at least in Italian the term has been used since the XIV century, so it’s not photocopy related

        • Lvxferre@lemmy.ml
          3·
          11 months ago

          Yeah, if copia sputata is so old there’s no way that it’s from those machines.

          Digging further on the expression it seems to be old in English too, attested in 1689. And the only explanation that I’ve seen to account to Italian and English both having it is religious in nature - while not biblical it seems common the idea that God spat into the clay to create Adam.

          Speaking on Italian: people (often native speakers) messing with the apostrophe bug me a bit, it’s a good example for this thread. Specially un’ followed by a masculine word; e.g. *un’altro for un altro. It tilts the autocompletion inside my brain, expecting a word and getting another in place. I’m not native speaker though so this likely plays a role.