tract » track
Spotted in the wild:
- Historic farms were self contained and self supporting consisting of different tracks of land. (link)
- Moreover, there are huge tracks of idle land in the country that is owned by individuals who inherited them from their predecessors. The unfortunate thing about these tracks of land is that they have been fenced off making it impossible for anyone to utilise them – in any case the lawyers would advise the owners not to let others use the land and to avoid the passing of ownership by adverse possession, etc. (link)
- Environmentalists also demand that vast tracks of land be put into wilderness areas without roads and prohibit vehicles of any sort. (link)
1
Commentary by Arnold Zwicky , 2006/05/02 at 5:24 pm
Ron Butters contributed an occurrence of “religious track” to ADS-L on 7 May 2005, from the Mississippi Standard Democrat of 25 November 2002:
“All denominations of literature are accepted, Breland said. New Bibles, religious tracks, good, used hardback or paperback religious items are acceptable, Breland said. Any spiritual or religious literature is accepted, however racist literature is restricted from being shelved in the library, he added.”
And as Larry Horn noted on ADS-L, 2 May 2006, “digestive track” and the like are very common. Dennis Preston added “track housing”, noting that “it works even semantically since such housing is thought to be close to (but on the wrong side of) the tracks.”
The opposite substitution, “track” >> “tract” is now also in the database, here.
2
Commentary by Hilary Robinson , 2006/10/04 at 9:29 pm
I live near the Potteries (Stoke-on-Trent) in England. More than once, I have heard people around here referring to their “digestive track”. Some also talk about their “midrift” (rather than midriff).