Eggcorn Forum

This one surprised me. It’s much more common than I expected – I found 169 ugh for “deviling into” alone, which is a really big number for a reshaping. At first I thought that most of these were “cupertinos” – spellchecker miscorrections – but while my spellchecker does offer “deviling” for any misspelling I could think of, it always offers “delving” first. And “deviling” does make some sense in context: as the first citation below implies, delving into hidden things can be a dark, invasive, insinuating process – often transgressive if not quite diabolical. This may be a fairly recent reshaping; I only found one unambiguous instance on books.google.com, from a book published in 2003. Examples:

i love this opera …......it devils into the darkest place of love and brings light to what we trie to hide and the feelings that we lock away inside ..
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s … =firefox-a
on phantom of the opera

The business is addictive because you realize you are deviling into peoples inner sanctum, themselves, you’re finding out their likes, their dislikes and that’s why I love it, absolutely love it,” Huggins said.
http://www.talkdelaware.com/local-chat/ … -72-a.html

This is also a coming of age story with young Lily deviling into the mystery of her past and her mother.
http://www.hometheaterinfo.com/secret_life_of_bees.htm

Lots of deviling into Jess’s past, including very angsty memories from her abusive foster homes.
http://www.fanfiction.net/u/885152/Sparrow_Shadow

An avid history buff I wish I could spend, or rather , invest more time, deviling into the past.
http://mcinerneyrealtor.blogspot.com/20 … -time.html

Though this is all true, is it safe for celebrities to be deviling into a networking tool so closely linked with their fans?
http://dailytrojan.com/2009/10/19/celeb … urth-wall/

I wondered at first whether I’d simply stumbled onto a standard term I was unfamiliar with. But the OED doesn’t seem to think so. They offer 6 senses for “to devil,” but none of them is a good match. The meaning of the sixth might conceivably be extended to mean “delving into,” but I’m skeptical that that explains my citations. In any case, you can peruse the OED’s definitions here; I’ve deleted the examples to save space:

†1.a. to devil it: to play the devil, to act like the devil. Obs.
†b. trans. To play the devil with, to ruin. Obs.
c. allusive nonce-wd.
2. trans. To grill with hot condiments.
3.a. intr. To act as ‘devil’ to a lawyer or literary man; to do professional work for another without
fee, or without recognition.
b. trans. To do (work) as a ‘devil’.
c. To entrust to a ‘devil’ or private deputy.
4. trans. To tear to pieces (rags, old cloth, etc.) with a machine called a devil. See devilling n. 2.
5. To worry (someone) excessively; to harass, annoy, tease. Chiefly U.S. colloq.
6. To scratch or score the surface of (plaster) to provide a rough surface for the next coat.