short-sighted » short-sided
Spotted in the wild:
- While I agree that comparisons between Al Queda and a trained national military force is short sided, dhoyt, I would not agree that religious martyrdom and cold blooded murder are in any way the same (besides, wouldn’t angry, indiscriminate terrorists be committing hot blooded manslaughter?). (MetaFilter)
- I don’t think there is one group of people that is greedy and then us poor people aren’t greedy that I think is silly, but I do think people are short sided. I think record companies are short sided and created and exasperate a lot of these problems so I hold my industry accountable and we always were the elite kind of store with out industry anyways. (link)
- “I think it is very short-sided to contaminate the environment for a short-term gain,” Post said. (Odessa American Online, 09 June 2005)
- If true, this practice is at once both unnecessary and incredibly short-sided. (link)
- I think that it’s very much a short sided “might makes right policy” that really needs to change. (link)
Analyzed or reported by:
- Language Hat (on this site)
This is another one of the American English /t/-flapping eggcorns, like deep-seeded, centripetal » centripedal etc.
In soccer and other varieties of football, short-sided refers to a game that is played between teams of fewer than 11 players (sides of seven or five are popular). The American Youth Soccer Organization “recommends that all children under the age of 12 play short-sided (less than 11 players per team) soccer”. The Football Association (England) uses the small-sided for games played by teams “of not more than seven players, one of whom is the goalkeeper”. Apparently, short-sided is also a legitimate golf term.
[Information on short-sided in football corrected after an error was pointed out by Mark Liberman on Language Log.]
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