As our language continues to "evolve"...

[avevale_intelligencer]

I notice that the phrase "to home in," common when I was a youngster, is now being misreplaced with increasing frequency by the meaningless phrase "to hone in," presumably from some idea about locating a place or a person being akin to sharpening. I expect that, as with most of these changes, nobody has any idea that it hasn't always been like that, and certainly nobody cares.

I look forward with a certain glum fascination to the first reference to "honing pigeons."

Comments

Eggcorns are so common...

[michael cule (from livejournal.com)]

... that they have their own website:

http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/

And are distinguished from mondygreens which are sort of the same but different...

(All that stuff I learned for the linguistics paper at university: gone now...)

Michael Cule