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Chris -- 2018-04-11
The second hit on fpberger’s post on fretting the small stuff related a story of a “waterclogged” self phone with equanimity. Lots of hits out there for this one. The origin for the word waterlog is the extremely mundane idea that the object in question will resemble a log, believe it or not. So waterclogging is not a degradation of imagery.
Yesterday morning I woke up with a broken new bkr water bottle, water clogged I Phone
fp’s second hit
Waterclogged crops hurt Upper Midwest farm borrowers
American Banker magazine
Retentive soils drained or undrained may by great aud constant rains become so completely waterclogged as to retard the growth of crops by suffocating or drowning the roots
Mass. Agr. Coll. Report, 1879
The particular case of waterclogged soils in some of the valleys and plains of the western mountains shows the relationship between surface and groundwater.
Land guide, 1976
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Good one. I wonder if the source of the verb “waterlog” might be the nominal “water log.” A log that has been in the water for sometime becomes a cellulose iceberg, with just a bit of wood above the waterline.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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