In yesterday’s mailbox, this indirect attempt to get me to post (about) something on this blog (untouched except for suppressing its header and the link):
With all do the respect,
I am hitting your inbox without any introduction, sorry for that.
BUT…. we did put around 230+ hours into this article about the most popular dog breeds in the world. (scanned 96 countries)
So check it:
[link]
What you think?
Paws UP or Down?
So: check it for check it out, What you think? for What do you think? And the wonderful double nonstandardisms in with all do the respect for standard with all due respect, a combination of a due/do eggcorn and a nonstandard variant with all due the respect of the idiom of polite disagreement with all due respect, showing interference from the respect someone is due: so, the adj. due ‘appropriate, required, owed’ in the idiom vs. in the more open combinations of
[for someone] to be due respect / honor / acclaim / etc. (McCain is due respect for his service)
and [for] respect / honor / acclaim / etc. to be due to [someone] (Respect is due to McCain for his service).
The nonstandard syntax. To my surprise, it turns out that the nonstandardism with all due the respect is pretty common, with many thousands of ghits.
On my surprise: as an ordinary speaker of English, there are tons of things I happen not to have heard or read; but then as a linguist, I note that I haven’t found any literature about it. (Of course, that just might be a reflection of my poor searching skills; I would be delighted to hear about relevant discussions in dictionaries, dialect notes, etc.).
Examples of the nonstandard variant of the idiom:
I mean this with all due the respect. (link)
with all due the respect[,] juanita (link)
Lakers Vs. Dallas? with all due the respect, but that’s the most boring christmas game ever (link)
The double nonstandardism (with the do eggcorn), in contrast, is genuinely rare — just a handful of ghits, among them:
With all do the respect to the community, this is PURE SHIT (link)
Pragmatic note. From the Oxford Languages site:
phrase with all due respect: used as a polite formula preceding, and intended to mitigate the effect of, an expression of disagreement or criticism. | “with all due respect, Father, I think you’ve got to be more broad-minded these days”
As a politeness marker, the idiom is used quite often as a purely conventional formula, with no actual respect or concern for the addressee intended; it’s just what you’re supposed to say when you’re disagreeing with someone. But you are in fact expressing a negative judgment, so the idiom has steadily devolved into serving, on some occasions, as a vehicle for rudeness and open contempt: I’m saying this because I’m supposed to, but in fact I have no respect for you at all, actually I think you’re a worthless piece of shit.
And, finally, the eggcorn. From the Eggcorn Database, eggcorns from people who presumably have do and due as homophones (which these days includes a great many, probably most, Americans):
#342: do » due (link), chiefly in: make due, due or die (by Arnold Zwicky, 5/7/05)
#471: due » do (link), chiefly in: do diligence, do process, do to (the fact, etc.), give credit where credit is do, give (someone) his/her do (by Ben Zimmer , 7/20/05); and also with all do respect
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