Eggcorn Forum

About 30 hits. This sounds like the description of an ill-advised posture during a gunfight. It’s obviously a conflation of the phrases “on all fours” and “firing on all cylinders,” with the writers’ knowledge that some engines have 4 cylinders providing a bit of interference – there are also rarer variants with “firing on all sixes/eights.” “On all fours” is weird all by itself: numerals don’t go around getting plurals much in English. (The Eggcorn Database already has a very different phrase based on “all fours”: “on our fours.”) And “firing on all fours” is weirder still since a phrase often applied to human limbs is being transferred to part of a car. In a vague way, this reminds me of that strange habit people have of identifying themselves with their automobiles: “I’m parked over there,” or – even more counterfactually – “I’m over there.”

I first spotted this in a review of an OMD album by Ned Raggett. He’s a good writer and a knowledgeable music critic – one of my favorites – so I’m pleased to be able to feature four excerpts by him from four different reviews (the last four examples before). A number of other music critics also use this. I don’t know why critics are partial to this construction, but perhaps Raggett has served as an eggcornish Johnny Appleseed. I’d like to nominate him for the 2006 Eggcorn Forum Achievement Award for Innovation in Fixed Phrases. Examples:

ARIA Award winning duo Matt Walker and Ashley Davies are back and firing on all fours with their much anticipated third album.
http://www.amo.org.au/artists.asp?secti … sed_in=All

“We’re firing on all fours but we’d like to be firing on all eight,” said Nevada Amber Alert Committee member Bob Fisher.
http://www.klas-tv.com/Global/story.asp?S=4888706

2002’s “Knock Loud” was nothing short of a cocksure roar of satisfaction, seething with ire and vitriol and smelling faintly of the barmaid’s apron, Case attempting to splatter her larynx against all four studio walls and drummer Mike Latulippe, bassist John Szymanski, and guitarist Marco Delicato firing on all fours.
http://www.i94bar.com/reviews/paybacks.html

Townson providing the machine-like propulsion, Reimer firing on all fours, and the man himself ranting and crying for mercy from a world packed to bursting with “boy bands, white hip-hoppers, lifestyles of the rich and braindead,” and “hysterics in Hollywood who wouldn’t know culture from the rear end of a dead dodo.”
http://www.i94bar.com/reviews/martingordon.html

After qualifying second behind last week’s Forges Stores Wheel race winner Nicholas Sanderson in the third heat, Bayley was firing on all fours for a definitive win in the final, later in the night.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/results/2002 … agul.shtml

In both episodes the Joel/Dr. Forrester lineup was easily firing on all fours, references running from Tim Weisberg to John Waters to Frank Frazetta to Nam flashbacks to lentils to Soul Train—and then of course the skits as well (“SLEEEEP! In heavenly PEEEEACE!”).
http://www.freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2004 … chive.html

This said, perhaps the best thing about the album isn’t what it’s supposed to sound like, but what it actually does—an awesomely powerful, glam-inspired rock band firing on all fours, capable of restraint and complete overdrive both, fronted by a charismatic, storming frontman.
http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sq … 5a8qbtbtc4

Stitched together from a variety of shows on the final Hüsker Dü tour in late 1987, The Living End may not be a true representation of the band’s sets, but as a collection of tracks by an about-to-crack group still firing on all fours live, it’s quite a treat.
http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sq … dayl78xppb

Smarting from Dazzle Ships’ commercial failure, the band had a bit of a rethink when it came to their fifth album—happily, the end result showed that the group was still firing on all fours.
http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sq … klu3y5anok