somehow or rather

Filed under: Eggcorns, New-to-me Words, Phrases
2 Comments

I recently came across the phrase somehow or rather. I initially assumed that it was a typo for somehow or other, but I got curious and did a web search and found that lots of people have used the phrase online. I assume that it’s an eggcorn, but if so, it seems to be a pretty common one. And it’s not listed in the eggcorn database (though that’s true of plenty of eggcorns), and I don’t think I had encountered it before.

Do any of you use this phrase? Have you seen it used?

I should add that most of the search results that I looked at seemed pretty clearly to have the same meaning as somehow or other—it’s not just a case of Google finding those words in other contexts.

2 Responses to “somehow or rather”

  1. Francis

    I normally use the phrase “somehow or other” and yes I’ve seen many people use “somehow or rather” I think both are right but it should be applied in context of what the writer intends to say.

    reply

  2. Nimalendra

    I have heard my father uses ‘somehow or rather’
    Often when he meant whatever obstacles comes that he is going to do it

    reply

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