bass » base
Spotted in the wild:
- “At last!” replies a hoarse, base voice. “Is Fuchs with you?” (link)
- In the Bayreuth Festival the 1978 edition Matti Salminen performed as Daland in Der fliegende Holländer and year after year he performed as Landgrave in Tannhäuser, as Titurel in Parsifal, as King Marke in Tristan and Isolde and also in some other base parts in the Ring-cycle. Matti Salminen’s repertoire includes the main parts for an authentic base voice in the works belonging to Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, Glinka and Mussorgsky. (link)
- Each individual voice has an inherent range and pitch. At a young age this pitch is usually high even for a person with a base voice. (link)
- There are various kinds of voices. Yours seems to be a base voice. (link)
Analyzed or reported by:
- Mark Liberman at Language Log (Shooting eggcorns in a barrel)
1
Commentary by Tom Neely , 2006/09/17 at 3:27 am
Google shows 73,000+ instances of “base guitar,” and 2,400+ ghits for “base fiddle.” This makes sense, since the low bass sound of these instruments provides a base for the music. I made the _basic_ rookie mistake of forgetting to google “base drum.”
Note that this is a spelling eggcorn (an Egg Suite-Corn), since the sounds of _base_ and _bass_ are identical. It falls into the same category as _wave_ for _waive_.
Conceivable eggcorns for further inquiry: Baste Fiddle, Groan Bass