Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
Saw this last week on a message board, someone referred to “those who wheeled power.”
Google can’t find it now, but finds a couple of other examples:
“Create a crisis, or the notion of one, and then fasion a fix that benefits those who wheeled power. ”
http://www.g1teg.org/phpbb/viewtopic.ph … ef0892326c
“A letter sent to Joseph Vasscopolis, an underworld big boss and a man who wheeled power.”
http://www.cyoc.net/stories/chapter_vie … previous=1
I think they may be thinking of “wheeled” in the sense of “brought,” or drove, etc. There also may be an element of thinking of the powerful as “big wheels.”
I think that the eggcornish nature is underscored by the second quote above. While “those who wheeled power” uses the phrase in the same sentence structure as the correct phrase would be used, the second quote shows that the writer was indeed thinking of “wheeled” in the sense that suggests an eggcorn rather than simple mispelling.
Last edited by Craig C Clarke (2007-05-18 22:57:01)
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Craig: I’d like to believe that second quote was an eggcorn but there’s so much mis-spelling about I have some doubts; “wheeleding” has 71 ghits and “wheeleded” for “wielded” has 25. Then there’s “the commonwheel” for “the commonweal”, with guest appearances by “common wield” and “the common wheal” (which would make a nice eggcorn if it referred to some shared tribulation perhaps – but it doesn’t). Doubts or not, it’s certainly an interesting image – I can imagine ‘power’ being weighty enough to require wheels to move it about, but ‘influence’ would surely have alternative means of locomotion?
Peter
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I really like “wheeled power” as a potential eggcorn. I’m just having trouble configuring my Google searches to come up with much more than what Craig already listed. The imagery is indeed hilarious as Peter suggests: Power so weighty that it must be wheeled from one location to the next. Even moreso: It’s as if the power is mainly for show and intimidation (as things on wheels sometimes are), and it would require someone to “wheel” that clumsy behemoth into exactly the right position before it could deliver it’s death force. So, the imagery works for me, and I’m just surprised there isn’t more of it out there.
Here’s one:
Win For Health Foods In France – Share The WealthTypically, most regulatory bodies in collusion with their Pharma cronies illegally and/or abusively wheeled their power to squash health food/alternate …
www.newmediaexplorer.org/chris/2004/02/ … france.htm – 59k – Cached – Similar pages
Here’s one that looks to be more of a misspelling since it isn’t even grammatically correct…
Come Hell (The Final Story Of The Hunters) Part 7 in Travis McCoy blogHe wanted to wheeled his strength against Peter and watch him fall entirely. He wanted, needed to get rid of the shadow that lurked. ...
www.buzznet.com/tags/travismccoy/journals/167645/ – 38k – May 18, 2007 – Cached – Similar pages
But there may be other idioms containing “wheel” that apply in different ways: Craig mentioned “big wheels,” and I would add the notion of a “wheeler-dealer”—particularly since the latter is defined as “a shrewd operator esp. in business or politics.”
Finally, if one Googles “wheel their power” one locates quite a few usages that are simply jargon within the electrical power industry.
Last edited by jorkel (2007-05-19 09:17:18)
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Digging for eggcorn squash led me to this gem I hadn’t seen before. Here’s a near-nonce (a deuce) that yet has something to recommend it, if just simply as an excuse to bring the above back to the surface for reappreciation.
Bloody Mary is clearly constructed as an ambitious wheedler-dealer and a bad mother.
http://books.google.ca/books?id=2my-qyI … 22&f=false
i always wonder when the women are going to realize they need to ban together and win this show. whew that russell is a wheedler dealer,don’t like him but he does stir things up.
http://forums.ebay.com/thread.jspa?thre … print=true
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I love it! A wheedler-dealer is just a bit more smarmily insistent than a wheeler-dealer, I think.
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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