Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2025-05-10
Just ran across clodpoll and thought it was an eggcorn for clodpole. But some dictionaries seem to accept it, so I suppose it is an old form.
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Both, of course, mean “doltâ€. A clodpoll would be a “lumpheadâ€, which makes sense. I’d always associated a “clodpole†with a scarecrow-like image, though the immobility and insensibility of a pole (cf. “stiff as a postâ€, “deaf as a postâ€) could also be part of the meaning for some.
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Do any of you know more about the history of these words? Any indication as to which may have been eggcorned off the other?
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2009-06-13 14:34:48)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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My copy of Francis Grose’s 1785 The Vulgar Tongue has:
CLOD PATE. A dull heavy booby.
CLOD POLE. The same.
POLL. The head, jolly knob, napper, or knowledge box; also a wig.
So he distinguishes pole and poll by spelling, but whether he’d do so consistently is another matter. Still, it seems to suggest that ‘clodpole’ is the original expression.
I’m familiar with neither expression, but clodpole seems more evocative; even poleaxe, an heavy tool for killing cattle etc with one blow to the head has lost its original spelling of pollax, with the focus shifting to the long haft instead.
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