Eggcorn Forum

The Database entry for hare’s breath (a first class double eggcorn which I had forgotten but just ran across again) lists as its first example

A poorly made soldered joint for example may appear to be satisfactory at the fill pressure, and detection will only be possible if the pressure is raised. Such a joint is often said to be ‘hanging by a hare’s breath’, and needs additional pressure to expose the fault. (Marley Plumbing and Drainage)

Interesting idiom blend going on there, on top of the eggcorn: hang by a hair(/thread) hooks up with hair’s/hare’s breadth/breath . Google does not give a lot of other examples of “hanging by a hare”, and a number of them are purposeful puns:

Buy Hanging by a Hare art prints by Ralph Slatton at Imagekind.com. Shop Thousands of Canvas and Framed Wall Art Prints and Posters at Imagekind. [Print looks like dead rabbits hanging]

Hanging by a Hare// Starter for Vikingsylph. It was almost 4 o’clock in Wonderland. Hare had just put the last plate on the table.

but this jewel showed up:

Mar 10, 1975 — ... -The women’s and children’s apparel industry here, while not quite hanging by a hare thread, has fallen into the worse slump in years. (Hanover Evening Sun Newspaper Archives, Mar 10, 1975, p. 7)

I guess they meant a hare hair? (or a hair-thread?)
.
Unsurprisingly, there are many more “hanging by a hair’s breadth”:

Information from the family of DR Theoneste Niyitegeka indicates that his life is hanging by a hair’s breadth after he was thoroughly beaten

time and again I felt that I was hanging by a hair’s breadth and clinging for dear life on the edges of all kinds of strange cliffs

and so forth.

Last edited by DavidTuggy (2021-07-20 09:43:28)