Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
The word gaol is archaic at best for most American English users, and if it is known, it is known from reading and writing; the fact that it is pronounced the same, and means the same, as jail means that hearing it used will almost certainly not be connected to the gaol spelling.
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Some, perhaps writing in consciously archaic or British style, are aware of the word but may confuse it with goal :
Popish way, his Words, his Charms, and Holy Water, and Relicks, methinks he is guilty of Witchcrast too, and you should send him to Goal for it
if you did such a thing, your last days on earth would be spent in goal before going to the hangman.
He resolves to get revenge upon the Justice who sentenced him to goal. He breaks into the Justice’s house and helps himself to the food
he will not be able to resist causing some sort of mischief, and that along with his debts I am about to call in will put him in goal for the rest of his miserable life
It could be a fingerslip (keystroke ordering) mistake, but if they are thinking “goal†the idea might be that this is the place bad people are destined to go to, or perhaps even striving to go to. If so, I think it is an eggcorn.
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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It may be archaic, but gaol is still used for some lockups here. However, goal for gaol looks like spelling or spell check errors these days. Strangely, apparently gaol has even been spelled officially as goal on occasion in the past (emphasis mine):
What we can never know is how documents from the 16th, 17th and 18th century expected readers to pronounce the spelling goal (in the sense of prison). Was it just a mix-up (like Jhon, a common medieval English spelling of John) or did it reflect a pronunciation parallel to the French geôle? Only some rhyming poetry or explicit discussion from those times can unlock that little mystery.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why … jail-gaol-
Others too.
This is the cemetery is where they buried people who died at Fort Saskatchewan Goal.There are no names on the markers.
https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/250 … l-cemetery
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