Like it or not, you probably have eggs on the brain. The massive recall of shell eggs is growing, along with reported cases of salmonella food poisoning. Learn the symptoms of salmonella and why it shares its name with salmon, right here.
While digging into the facts behind this scary situation, we found a story about the word “egg” that almost cracked our shell. Basically, two different terms for “egg” vied with each other across England until the 1500s, when “egg” won out. The loser? The now obsolete word “eye,” which was pronounced just like the things you are using to read these words.
Way back, England faced more invasions than there are ways to cook an egg. The Angles, the Saxons, the Jutes and the Normans are some of the peoples who tried to conquer the island, with varying degrees of success. (It’s probably obvious that England derives its name from the Angles, “land of the Angles.”) Eventually the marauders beat their swords into ploughshares and even fell in love outside of their ancestral groups. Language, however has a way of preserving conflict across generations.
The languages spoken by many of these Germanic groups shared a common ancestor. With time and distance, each strand evolved into distinct languages that were no longer mutually intelligible — which brings us back to “egg.”
Up until the 1500s, residents of the Northern part of England called an egg an “egg,” from Old Norse. But Southerners called the same oval, shelled object an “eye” or “eai” (both rhyming with “guy”), from Old English. Both words started with the same Proto-Germanic root, ajja. Even as William the Conqueror brought stability to the island, the linguistic battle of “egg” raged on in a myriad of conversations until “egg” became what you scramble, and a scrambled “eye” would only earn you confused glances.
What about “egg” as a verb? It comes from an entirely different source, the Old Norse eggja, “to incite.”
If you think all this seems bizarre, wait till you taste the mystery of where the word “coffee” comes from, here.
eggs suck
brown
smelly
runny
goat
The eggs have been egged by salmonella.
The German word for egg is “Ei” (pronounced “eye”).
I’m pretty sure that the word for eye in Skandinavian sounds a lot like egg too.
See, eye is something like oega in Norse.
Also in French, there is only a tiny difference in pronunciation from eyes and eggs (des yeux, des oeufs).
Does the hen know all this?
I have requested this before, and as your last blog requested that we make suggestions for the blogs we want to pertaining to medical conditions etc.
I would like to put this one up.
What are people who confuse LEFT and RIGHT (directions ) called?
What is the term for people who mispronounce words as children do called?
for eg: stammering and stuttering is for the people who pause repeatedly while talking; lisping is when ppl touch their palate with the tip of their tongue while pronouncing S.
The Dutch word for ‘egg’ is also ‘ei’. Also pronounced somewhat like the English ‘eye’.
Eggs should be boiled to serve so that they get messy. I wish you make me breakfast sometimes. I bet you are a good cook!
The word for egg in Dutch is ei – pronounced ‘eye’.
Who eggs you people on to write these replies?
I eye ei, then.
wow
Interesting that there is also a chapter in “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” entitled “The Egg and the Eye.” Coincidence?
The style of this article is an absolute catastrophe. I should save it and present it as an example of a hyperinflation not to be emulated. All the twirling and swirling lose both the meaning and the reader. Ridiculous.
And let us not forget the phrase “bad egg” as in: Lindsay Lohan is the baddest egg in the land.
The term for Children that mispronounce words is called “Being 5″
Interestingly, at 23, I now refer to it as “pasketti” more often than not.
[...] hard to find a Good “EGG” anymore — though some “Eggheads” have good intentions which paves the path to [...]
Egg in pig latin is ggeay.
An eye for an eye?
EGGS, EGGS, EGGS, NUMMY NUM NUM. BUT COOK THE WHITES PLEASE!
In German egg translates to Ei (pronounced eye)
There are some good Eggsamples here 
. Eye don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t of fell on this site. This is eggsactly the sort of thing I was looking for.
Eye in swedish is written öga and it is pronounced almost the same as in english egg
For the post about right / left and mispronouncing, I have to agree with the earlier post… that for kids five and under, mispronouncing words is due to their condition of being, well, 5 or under.
However, for ongoing conditions and such, mayhap this will help:
Aphasia is one of the umbrella type terms for conditions such as Dyslexia, Dysnomia, and the like… and the things that were asked about seem to be things that would be related to Aphasia, or at least be in the same proverbial sport.
If you’re interested in it, wiki Aphasia and go from there.
I love this page. I enjoyed the comments, I’ll be back!!
That’s funny
Egg in Japanese is ‘tamago’, whose chinese character signifies a child of a ball or children of balls. The singular and plural term is the same.
‘Tama’contains several meanings but primarily refers to a round-shaped object like a tennis ball. It also means a piece of jewery and a crystal ball. In a vulgar speech, it means testicles and a broad/chic.
Aye, language preserves many conflicts (minor and major) of our ancestors. Like the old Germanic Goths and Vandals. “Goth” used to be quite negative until the literary world spiced it up a bit. Or even the word picnic (Pick-a-Nick; afternoon slave auctions), which is a particularly innocent perversion.
In Japanese, we call sunny side up “Me-dama Yaki”. “Me” means “eye”, “dama” means “ball”, “yaki” means “fry”, therefore, “Medama Yaki” means “fried eye-ball(s)”
I shall eye on the things that have been happening.
No, Jackie — “picnic” has nothing to do with slave auctions. Learn the surprising true story here: http://www.snopes.com/language/offense/picnic.asp
imagine: fried eyes and ham for breakfast. Wacky.
found your site on del.icio.us today and really liked it.. i bookmarked it and will be back to check it out some more later
@Jen: Yeah, I think it is a coincidence. Rowling’s good…but not THAT good.
my name is thanesh kumar.
currently 22 years old.
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my name is thanesh kumar.
currently 22 years old.
single and available.
i am study BOSS university.
Bachelor of social and service.
Wow, I really enjoy “the hot word” because I like learning English. Runs in my family. I’m from the Faroe Islands and I really enjoy finding words that the Faroese and English languages have in common, such as the last mentioned word here “eggja”, meaning incite; it’s a word very much used in the Faroese language today with the exact same meaning!
[...] NANO” said MORK from ORK who arrived on Earth in an EGG_POD — Shazbot came second — Where Apple began having grown into a full sized Robot. — [...]
Eye in swedish is spelled öga. It is not, however, pronounced anything like the english or swedish word for egg (ägg, in swedish; same pronounciation.)
imagine seeing (or rather not) would you like green eyes and ham.
Ha, although the similarities in different languages of the two words and the origins and everything is interesting, here’s one for you:
In finnish the eyeball translates to silmämuna, silmä meaning eye and muna meaning egg.
一目を置くliterally translates putting one eye on someone, meaning acknowlege sb’s superiority.
In Russian the word for Sunny-side up eggs is “glazok”. The word for eye is “glaz”. Coincidence?
@ NANO NANO BLOGCHI
Actually Nanu Nanu came first. I watched Robin Williams as Mork, correct those who made that mistake, on an episode fadeout one day. Then Shalzbot came second, or so he told Johnnie Carson one night.
The most interesting thing about “eggs” and “eyren” is that the choice appears to have been a deliberate one by William Caxton (ca. 1415~1422 – ca. March 1492), the first English printer, who was very conscious of the fact that his new craft would bring standardization to the language.
I’m stunned that an article on dictionary.com was misuse the word “myriad”. It’s a schoolboy error to use “of” after “myriad” or “myriads”, look it up! Maybe next time you could use “in a plethora of conversations” or “in myriad conversations”… tsk.
In Australia eggs are called cackleberries…
What?
> The now obsolete word “eye,” which was pronounced
> just like the things you are using to read these words.
“EYE,” was pronounced just like “GLASSES?”
Now… that’s just absurd…. 
the word ‘eye’ was also the old english word for island (in a river), such as in the name “Swansea” (eye [or island] of the river Swan)
also for daisy, or “day’s eye”
To the speaker of “Pig Latin”: actually, words that start with vowels follow different rules: egg is “eggway”
Cockney comes from the same thing. The cockneys are supposedly thinsg you cannot trust and what else can’t you trust?
A cock’s egg, or rather, a cock ‘n’ egg, or rather again, a cock ‘n’ eye.