As Egg Cream is to Eggcorn

This work has been released into the public domain by its author, Perlow at English Wikipedia. This applies worldwide. Why not have some fun with illustrating your own? “Bowl in a China shop” is probably a bit dull, but how about “Doggy Dog World” or “Damp Squid” — they sound fun, don’t they?

“I can tell by your face that you haven’t asked for one of these before. And I can see you’re amused that it has neither one of the items in its name in the recipe. Neither egg nor cream. And yet you’ve heard — was it your sister’s brother, sir? The one you think is a bit behind in the synapse firing department, sir? — that it is a delicacy. Not that he’d have used that term, of course. What might he have said, sir? Did he say it ‘more than passed the mustard’? Did he say that, sir? Or was it ‘jar-droppingly good’? Was that it? And how can that be so, you’re thinking, when, as far as you’re concerned, he doesn’t understand anything and an egg cream, without either egg or cream, surely that’s just another misconception right from the very first? How can something so very wrong be any good, you’re thinking. Oh, I can tell from the way you wrinkle your nose, sir. I’ve mixed enough drinks now to know what people are thinking, but — you see — you can’t ever properly tell until you’ve tasted the result. Believe me.

Sorry, sir, if you could just let me reach the syrup there. Chocolate, sir. With the milk and the carbonated water, yes, that’s right, sir. No cream. Not so much as a dollop, sir. One moment while I fetch the fork. There we are.

I know, I know. Your sister’s brother says he’s ‘chomping at the bit’, when he ought to mean champing. I know you’ll have checked up on that, sir. But, I ask you — one moment, sir, while I whisk this up a bit more — have you ever champed, sir? If I say champed to you, sir, can you picture it? Doesn’t chomping down on that bit work that bit better for you, sir? And I know he thinks it’s ‘all intensive purposes’. I know that. But again, ask yourself, can you make sense of an ‘intensive purpose’? Something both intense and purposeful. Isn’t that somehow better, sir? More fitting? And what about ‘bowl in a china shop’? Surely you’re more likely to find a bowl in a china shop than a bull, sir? Surely.

Yes, yes, I know he might be missing the allusion to being clumsy, but how did he use it, sir? Did he mean something clumsy? Or did he mean something fitting? Or weren’t you listening, sir, because you’d caught him out on something wrong and, from that moment on, whatever he might have meant was secondary, sir?

Frothy, isn’t it? Why don’t you give it a sip. See what you think.

I suppose I could call it a chocolate syrup with cold milk and seltzer water, sir. I could. And your sister’s brother could. But, then, he and I would both be missing the taste, wouldn’t we, sir? We’d be missing how it goes down, wouldn’t we, sir? What it really means to us.

Now, after all your snark at his expense, how’s it going down there for you?”