The writer of this morning’s forecast discussion has a habit of saying “grant it” instead of “granted” when prefacing some uncertain weather prediction.
GRANT IT...MEDIUM RANGE MODELS HAVE A RATHER LARGE SPREAD IN SOLUTIONS WHICH GIVES LITTLE CONFIDENCE.
I wondered how common this might be, and found a reference describing this phrase as a possible eggcorn – which I had not heard of before. What’s an eggcorn?
In linguistics, an eggcorn is an idiosyncratic substitution of a word or phrase for a word or words that sound similar or identical in the speaker’s dialect. (Wikipedia)
The eggcorn forum wasn’t quite ready to accept “grant it” as a true eggcorn, although “granite” is mentioned (as in, “taken for granite”).
I also wondered if anyone else at the National Weather Service has noticed the use of “grant it” in place of “granted” – this isn’t the first time I’ve seen it. I suppose there’s not much time for editorial review. Today he followed up “grant it” with another slightly-off phrase: “none the less” instead of nonetheless.
