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Chris -- 2018-04-11
“There’s a backers dozen of us in all of AZ.”
from a comment on huffington post.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/24/mccain-ties-opponent-to-b_n_474809.html
A baker’s dozen is 12 + 1 for good measure.
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Interesting. Could be a misspelling – I’ve seen people write “L. A. Lackers†even when they didn’t seem to be trying to be sarcastic. But what’s the eggcornical logic for this if it’s not a misspelling? Maybe the idea that the “backer†of something will try to hedge their bets by lining up more support than needed?
This led me to look for “beggar’s dozen.†Lots of hits, but the huge majority of them are knowing puns. Books.google.com lists a dozen hits for “a beggar’s dozen,†most of which look legit and don’t show up on regular Google. Interestingly, more than half of those are from the 1920s or earlier, though there is one hit from 2009. This may be an older reshaping that’s fading away these days.
The Urban Dictionary thinks “a beggar’s dozen†is eleven. That would make sense: a beggar has to make do with less than the rest of us. But perhaps people are also thinking that someone inclined to begging will manage to score one more than most people, returning us to thirteen.
Examples:
Either he marries brood sow Betty who porks up to 200 the second after the vows are exchanged and he gets shackled in a dead-end job with a beggar’s dozen of screaming snot-nosed brats to support, or:
http://www.thenoiseboard.com/index.php? … try3402852
Enter Hits and with it a beggar’s dozen of arena pop songs that filled the little space in my heart normally reserved for Asia and Phil Collins.
http://www.connollyco.com/discography/m … /hits.html
You rejoin us & we’ll give you meetings, we’ll give you churches!”—Yes!—Little one-horse outfits, a beggar’s dozen‚ some of them! Well, some were sweet, cute little churches with precious people, really “churches in the homes” a lot of them‚ although they had a few big ones.
http://pubs.xfamily.org/text.php?t=1719
Last edited by patschwieterman (2010-02-25 11:50:32)
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