Eggcorn Forum

I happened upon this one in a Washington Post article that quoted Texas lieutenant governor Dan Patrick as saying, “We want a 15-year-old boy full of vivid vigor that every 15-year-old boy has walking into the girls’ bathroom? The superintendent is so irresponsible to do this that he needs to step down.”

The Washington Post article links to an article from the Dallas ABC affiliate WFAA that also uses the “vivid vigor” quote. However, in the video of Patrick’s statement (skip to about 1:15), it sounds to me like he does say “vim and vigor” and that the WFAA article misquoted him.

Searching Google for “vivid vigor” produced mostly either links to articles about Dan Patrick’s statement or references to a 19th century work that seemed to be using “vivid vigor” compositionally rather than as a mistaken idiom. However, there were some exceptions that seemed like the eggcorn, some of them in statements that presumably didn’t have professional editing:

She beautifully portrayed her grandmother’s life with such vivid vigor! Had me smiling, had me crying… very emotional

I could enjoy beautiful Finnish nature surrounded my studio so that I got not only peaceful but also vivid vigor

Qiyunshengdong plays a pretty important role in Chinese painting, that is, vivid vigor and quaint charm

In addition, pleated design on the hem shows a dynamic feeling, it adds vivid vigor to the whole dress