rabid » rapid

Chiefly in:   rapid fan

Classification: English

Spotted in the wild:

  • Sure, the last few years — OK, the last few decades — have been rough, but few teams can match the colorfulness and rapid fan following of the Cubs. (The Sporting News Diamond Collection, 2000)
  • A lot of people never got into The Smiths. Probably because, in my opinion, they couldn’t get past the rapid fans, Morrissey’s whiney voice, or both. (Houston Calling, Oct. 20, 2003)
  • I don’t expect anyone but the rapid fans to believe that this team was going to be the best in baseball. (Soxtalk, June 21, 2005)

Analyzed or reported by:

Although Paul Brians originally suggested that rapid (fan) is an eggcornification of rampant, others in the alt.usage.english thread gave rabid as the more likely basis. There may however be some secondary influence from rampant (see rampant » rapid for more obvious examples).

| link | entered by Ben Zimmer, 2005/09/28 |

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