Eggcorn Forum

‘Tit for tat’ is a common expression meaning retaliation and is apparently derived from the much earlier ‘tip for tap’, both of which meant ‘a light blow’. I find the change of consonant interesting, even though it took place 500 years ago, and equally interesting the far more recent mutation to ‘tick for tack’. If I had any training in linguistics I could, perhaps, make something of the fact that those consonants are, very slowly, moving from the lips to the palate and thence down the throat – much as teeth might, having been tipped or tapped a little more generously than usual.
I suspect the influence of what I would know as ‘noughts and crosses’ or ‘Oxo’, but in the US is known as ‘tic-tac-toe’. There may also be the Stateside disinclination to use the word ‘tit’, which I noticed recently in the ‘tidbit’ variant of what I know as ‘titbit’. I know it’s not an eggcorn, but we eggcorn-hunters like this sort of thing, don’t we?

And much greater is the wrong that rewardeth evill for good than that which requireth tip for tap. Further, it semeth that where as you went [a]bout in time …
xroads.virginia.edu/~CLASS/workshop97/saer/adven.html – 173k – Cached

Today’s is a tit-for-tat attack for Friday’s violence. According to police reports, the CPM has been gathering arms and ammunition since Friday. ...
www.telegraphindia.com/1070619/asp/sili … 942826.asp – 28k – Cached

Instead, they fell victim to the hype, and decided to play tick for tack with the high powered Colt offense, and pulled out all of the deep passes and …
michiganagainsttheworld.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_archive.html – 68k – Cached

Last edited by Peter Forster (2007-06-27 12:36:27)