Eggcorn Forum

Speaking of credit for eggcorn finds, I thought I had a good idea for an eggcorn, so I was a bit crestfallen when I saw a familiar URL among the hits:

Thanks for humoring my inside-out thinking as I struggle to reclaim my brain from an extensive back-clog of incomplete linguistic experiences.
http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/forum/view … d=2179&p=2

I thought, “Huh – I don’t remember anyone posting ‘back-clog.’” Turns out that this isn’t from examples in a post – it’s Rogerthat writing, responding to posts by Nilep and Jon. My rule for myself is that if a citation turns up on a language-oriented blog, I should assume it was intentional and not an eggcorn. In any case, I’m happy to note that Rogerthat thought of this before I did.

“Back-clog” makes sense to me—a clog that backs things up. It’s less common than I expected, however—not even 20 unique hits. Examples:

Turns out there’s a pretty stupidly huge backclog of non-videogame stuff I’ve wanted to write about that just didn’t belong on my 1up blog, and this thing’s just so fucking easy to work with that there’s little excuse for not keeping the site up.
http://sharkey.gamespite.net/forum/index.php?topic=32.0

Thanks! there are a few more coming out of my backclog, and then I hope to get back to current events (such as shrinking fish).
http://www.flickr.com/photos/edyson/6079727/

Usually I get a bit of a backclog up at the front desk—with the form it’s a lot less than when Check-Out consisted of “twenty question” orally.
http://dr-phil-physics.livejournal.com/104269.html

Villar also paid tribute to his colleagues in the chamber, who painstakingly took the extra effort of working overtime during the past weeks to clear the Senate legislative mill of any backclog.
http://www.senate.gov.ph/press_release/ … illar1.asp
[I’ve commented before that transcriptions of speeches from the Irish Dail seem to provide a surprising number of eggcorns, but this is the first time that I can remember for a gov’t doc from the Phillipines.]

I’ve often wondered what the origin of “backlog” was. I assumed it was probably taken from the idea of a daily “log” of orders at a company– once you started having to flip “back,” you were getting behind. But the OED tells me that I’ve come up with my own folk etymology. They claim it comes from a large log kept at the back of a fire as a kind of reserve. Well, that’s cool, too.