Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
I discovered this site only yesterday and mentioned eggcorns to a friend today who instantly recalled someone, fresh out of love, who complained bitterly that her erstwhile lover had, ”..sailed me down the river..” which I suppose is a lot more pleasant than being ‘sold down the river’ but it was quite plain that both the direction and mode of travel were deeply resented. Is this an eggcorn or am I still missing something? (If I am it’ll be nothing new.)
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Seems like a pretty good eggcorn to me.
I tried to get Google counts for “sail(ed) down the river”, but most of them were literal usages. Even though I got fewer results by inserting “me,” the examples seem to capture the intended imagery.
17,100 “sold me down the river”
4 “sailed me down the river”
Examples
Blagger.com – complain, consumer complaints and comments about …Atlas Conservatories, this company as realy sailed me down the river . promised me aconsumer guarantee . the company that sends the guarantee . have said …
uk.blagger.com/scripts/comments.php?id=2361&PHPSESSID=e9bb0474198084e24dc50eeeb13aa257 – 9k – Supplemental Result – Cached – Similar pages
He-Man.org Forums – I just lost my job and I am speechless… of course i ended up doing her job to cover and when the whole thing blew up she sailed me down the river . . anyway i know how ya feel sometimes things …
www.he-man.org/forums/boards/printthread.php?t=136736 – 32k – Supplemental Result – Cached – Similar pages
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I like this one a lot, and I’d say it’s an eggcorn, even if a really rare eggcorn. Once Peter Forster pointed it out, my first expectation was that it was probably fairly widespread; I’m surprised it hasn’t caught on.
The users still seem to be employing it in the sense of “to betray,” but the sailing imagery blunts the force of the original a bit. You’re no longer sold into slavery or shanghaied—just sent on a long vacation far away. A bit of the idea behind the phrase “put out to pasture” may come into play here.
I found one more example to add to Jorkel’s:
The now pardoned Libbey will be soooo grateful to have been sailed down the river by Cheney, he can then testify against his old boss with impunity, ...
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/03/libby-pardon-2/
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