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Chris -- 2018-04-11
Back in 2005 klakritz pointed out that “lock-step and barrel” sometimes replaced the correct “lock, stock and barrel” (http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/forum/viewtopic.php?id=208).
An equally common replacement for “lock, stock and barrel” seems to be “log, stock and barrel.” The “log” version of the idiom has eggcorn potential. Notice that all three nouns in the new idiom are wood related: “stock” is the trunk of a living tree, a “log” is what you get when you cut down the tree stock, and a “barrel” is something you make from the log. Saying that you moved out of the house “log, stock and barrel” might imply that you moved everything, since “log, stock, and barrel” run the gamut from living wood to wood product.
Like “half-cocked,” or “at half-cock,” the idiom “lock, stock and barrel” appears to have an origin in musketry. The flintlock, gunstock and unrifled barrel were the three components of a musket (Well, there’s also the trigger, but perhaps that was considered to be part of the flintlock mechanism.). So taking action “lock, stock and barrel” came to mean doing the action in a complete way.
Examples of “log, stock and barrel:”
A forum post: “once you you get the chance bail out, log stock and barrel.” (http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread. … 9&page=202)
A dating advice post: “The one who likes you will like you almost log stock and barrel.” (http://ca.answers.yahoo.com/question/in … F03&show=7)
Online newspaper for an Asian Studies institute: “Therefore, Praba – Group should stop its lamentation and take appropriate action to put its house in order in the East, before we chase them log stock and barrel from our land.” (http://www.asiantribune.com/oldsite/sho … p?id=17240)
Comment on an article in a Malasia online newspaper: “Assuming the opposition wins and forms the govt, will they be inheriting from the previous govt the infrastructure log stock and barrel…?” (http://blog.thestar.com.my/permalink.asp?id=12845)
(By the way, an unusual number of the fifty unique ghits came from Asian and Middle Eastern sources. No idea why.)
Last edited by kem (2008-07-15 11:55:04)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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Nicely done. I do like the fact that all three items fall into the same category; it lends credibility to the imagery.
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Very nice! It is of course impossible to know what users actually have in mind, but the tree-to-wood products imagery certainly seems plausible. And it parallels the flint lock-to-gun barrel image nicely.
By the way, I never understood “lock, stock, and barrel” as a description of a musket. In my mind it described a general store: the lock on the door, the stock on the shelves, and the cracker barrel and other store fixtures.
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The theory you mention is noted in passing at http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/lock … rrel.html. I’ve heard this hypothesis before.
It’s possible that the phrase originated as a legal phrase (specifically, what is sometimes called a “merism.” See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merism). A flintlock musket would have been an expensive household item in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and would have merited a separate designation in the owner’s will.
Last edited by kem (2008-07-12 11:03:16)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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Nilep, I started a discussion based on your non-musket analysis of lock, stock & barrel, over at:
Eggcornology » Is there a name for homophonous reshapings
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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