dander » gander

Chiefly in:   get one's gander up

Classification: English

Spotted in the wild:

  • [Y]ou are a git, a stupid arrogant git at that, you’ve hurled ridiculous, childish paranoia at people I respect, you’ve argued irrationally and you have succeeded in getting my gander up (you grotty little man) with every one of your posts. (rec.arts.drwho)
  • However it was Carnfoth who were first on the scoresheet scoring under the posts. This got the Littlemoor men’s gander up and they were soon marching forward into enemy territory, the pack making the hard yards with some powerful driving mauls. (Rugby match report)

Analyzed or reported by:

Mark Liberman [notes](itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/l…) that _dander_ in this expression is not a synonym of cat scurf. Therefore, _dander_ itself would have to be counted as a former hidden eggcorn that has found its way into folk etymology.

As a speculation, the alliteration _**g**et one’s __g__ander up_ may have played a role in the substitution _dander_ > _gander_ (in conjunction with the image of angry fowl).

| link | entered by Chris Waigl, 2004/12/08 |

Commentaries

  1. 1

    Commentary by Ben Zimmer , 2005/02/15 at 11:00 pm

    Another eggcornification of this phrase, perhaps worthy of its own entry, changes “dander” to “dandruff” (see Paul Brians’ Common Errors in English).

  2. 2

    Commentary by Robert Shipiro , 2006/09/02 at 5:20 am

    Oh Fug it!!

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