mother lode » motherload

Classification: English

Spotted in the wild:

  • “I registered for a few things. (After talking to R… it seems like we will indeed recover the motherload of all baby objects from her garage, leaving us not needing much stuff.)” (E-mail to Elizabeth Daingerfield Zwicky from a friend, October 2004)
  • “The motherload of cb info,…” (link)
  • “I found the Moso motherload! … I’ma happy man.” (link)

Analyzed or reported by:

  • Anna, on this site (link)
  • Arnold Zwicky (The Fall Eggcorn Crop, on Language Log)

“Load” is a great deal more familiar than “lode”, and the mother lode contains loads of (’lots of’) stuff, so the reinterpretation is understandable.

There are also some cites with “motherload” reinterpreted as ‘a mother of a load, a huge load’: “Protect your computer from a motherload of viruses, spyware Web site, company offer free ways to protect PC…” (link)

| link | entered by Arnold Zwicky, 2005/08/21 |

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