Eggcorn Forum

The earliest OED citation for “dunk,” referring to a basketball shot, is 1966. Which seems about right, since the dunk shot only became popular in the 1960s with the advent of the NBA tall players.

The early dunks were gentle moves, the player slipping the ball lightly over the rim to let it fall into the net. By the early 1970s the dunk had become a show shot and players were blasting the ball down into hoop with more force than necessary. This led to the term “slam dunk.” Today the phrase “slam dunk” is used as a metaphor to refer to anything that is incontestable, simple to do, a given. “No problem. It’s a slam dunk.”

Some 10K pages, Google estimates, have the term “slam duck” or “slamduck.” It’s hard to estimate how many of these are replacement errors for “slam dunk.” A surprising number of these pages are in Spanish or in an Asian language and I’m not able to judge whether the replacements are intentional. It’s safe to say, however, that hundreds of English pages make this replacement in full seriousness. Some examples are below.

“Slam duck” is a possible eggcorn. Someone unaware of the basketball context of the phrase might visualize a person ducking to avoid a slamming fist. Perhaps the idiom “duck soup,” another idiom for something inherently simple, lends some help to the neural process.

Sports bulletin board post : “My riding is a slam duck for the tories, but I’m still going to excercise my right. Last time I voted NDP, but this time it seems like they are just going against the tories on every topic for no reason.” (http://tinyurl.com/57n4c2)

Posting: “It doesn’t make any one product a slam duck automatic 1 place product.” (http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/showt … 517&page=2)

Post on a blog: “This election should be a slam duck for Democrats due to the recession and unpopularity of the Republicans. ” (http://www.blackagendareport.com/index. … 5&Itemid=1)