Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
We’ve seen variations on “petal” for “pedal” here before (“petal to the metal”, “soft-petal”), but not this one:
”...you don’t see Petal-steel guitars, mandolins and all manner of other instruments too often anymore.” (from an Amazon music chat-list)
I doubt it’s an eggcorn, because I don’t see any obvious meaning connection. Her capitalizing “Petal” almost makes it seem that she’s interpreting Petal-steel as a brand name, perhaps of an instrument invented by a Mr. Petal?
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I like it, though I too can’t quite turn it into a convincing eggcorn. The sounds produced by a pedal-steel guitar can be delicate and unearthly; I’ve never before thought to compare that to anything “flower-like,” but maybe others have. When I saw your post, I also thought of dobros, with all that fancy ornamentation on the central resonator cones—some of that does look literally “petal-like.” But the pedal-steel guitars I looked at online all had a far more utilitarian appearance.
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