Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2025-05-10
Perhaps sort of an earlier eggcorn that has already slid into usage? Not exactly earth-shaking, but I’m interested in when it happened. I certainly grew up saying “piggyback ride” and remember being thrown when reading Dickens, I think, when I saw in its place “pick-a-back.” Makes more sense, really. Is this the vernacular or only another American adulteration?
Lucien Holmes
Pownal, Maine
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its not an exclusively american form. It predates in England the 20th century influence of american media. so yes it might have been an eggcorn once but has long since moved into mainstream usage. and become just another eytmological foot note.
Putting Guttenberg and Piggyback into google produced an (american ) book from 1916 on the first page. but I am sure that it predates this and suspect that the usage predates Dickens’ variant.
Simon
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