Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
You are not logged in.
Registrations are currently closed because of a technical problem. Please send email to
The forum administrator reserves the right to request users to plausibly demonstrate that they are real people with an interest in the topic of eggcorns. Otherwise they may be removed with no further justification. Likewise, accounts that have not been used for posting may be removed.
Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
The forum hasn’t taken note of the confusion between the Latinate “gambol†and the Teutonic “gamble.†Both words hint at playful, risk-taking leaps through fields of green – one through fields of money, the other through fields of grass.
The terms interchange in both directions. “Gambol†for “gamble:â€
Australian trading forum: “Bought this new on a gambol that it would fit HP Photosmart C4100, but it doesn’t, â€
In a book review: “Born in 1916 in La Jolla, California, Gregory Peck took up acting in college on a gambol that would lead to a career. â€
Actor bio: “Undaunted, he diverted his energies in a gambol that would ultimately result in policy shifts at Screen Actors Guild.â€
“Gamble†for “gambol:â€
Forum post: “Also, I think green roofs would catch on much quicker if they were magical fantasy lands with gambling unicorns.â€
Web fiction: “The tread of the stairs, measured for men, broke the dog’s gambling gait but not his momentum.â€
Gun forum:. “I liked the way their tails floated behind, undulating in the wake of their gambling gaitâ€
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
Offline
A search for mutation in the other direction, from gambol to gambowl, brought up some curious changelings. There are straight confusions with gambling:
I was caught up in gambowling debts.
Deviant poet
...and simple misspellings perhaps based on mispronunciation:
What would you do if i ran up and started singing ptang yang kipperbang whilst gambowling in front of you so u couldnt get past
Yahoo questions
Then the interesting ones seem to be reading some kind of rollin’ ‘n’ tumblin’ into it, either in utero:
I did feel baby moving a lot at the top of my uterus today i think his gambowling lol.
Mother board
Was lovely seeing the scan in detail, the baby was gambowling about in there as the women said she found it quite funny
Mother board.....
... to those that take the bowling angle seriously,
he did a run and jump over the fence. He landed with a bump, gambowling into the grass. He stayed face down on the grass, silent and spread out
fanfic
...especially the youtube videos, that show simple somersaulting:
Offline
From the liner notes of a CD reissue of “Safe as Milk” by Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band: ”...Cooder and St Clair intertwine with complex guitar lines which could’ve beamed in from Hendrix’s mythical South Saturn Delta as they delicately gamble in the ether…”
Googling “gambling about” yielded only one example of the eggcorn in the six pages (sixty hits) I checked:
“His mates are in the background – enjoyed watching them gambling about.” (from a caption to a picture of a piglet)
A similar Google sample of “gamble about” hits also yielded only one eggcorn out of 60 hits I examined. This one is interesting for the writer’s parenthetical comments about his usage of the term:
“I sat in the far field in the far corner for quite a while just lookin about and watching a young foal in the next field gamble about(do Osses/foals gamble or is just lambs that do it? anyroad lookin at it gamble sounds about right)”
I’m not surprised to find so few hits for this eggcorn, as the word gambol (whether or not misspelled) is not in most people’s working vocabulary.
Offline
Some more examples I had collected of this good-’un:
She believes Mr. Martin is taking the funds his wife and mother in law make and spending it on drink and gamboling.
Colonel Saunders wastrel brother lost the estate in gamboling debts and died in debtor’s prison
He had lost a good amount of his blunt at cards the night before; though if he had allowed himself to face his own truths, luck had not been with him for his gambolling endeavours in a long time.
I had just been defrauded by my de facto husband and lost over a million dollars because he had gambolled away out business and our home.
Just gambol the money, and let it ride. TNL@TB thinks I am crazy, investing in 1 or 2 companies at a time with my whole TFSA,
It is striking that play is a sometimes- or near-synonym with both gamble and gambol .
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2020-09-20 18:12:47)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
Offline