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#1 2014-12-12 15:40:58

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2714
Website

trail wind < tail wind

Must have had a trail wind! We got 46.4 MPG on the way to Austin.

Most years you will have a trail wind for the race. you also have about 3-4 miles on trails that can slow you a little.

A slight descent with a trail wind was exactly what was needed for some speedy riding.

Doubtless a blending of a “tail wind” with a “trailing N” (plenty of hits on “a trailing wind”), but it makes a reasonable eggcorn, I think. There is no lack of examples. (You also wonder if people also have in mind just where the trail will wind … driving along with the tumbling tumbleweeds.)

Related: trailspin

Last edited by DavidTuggy (2014-12-12 15:46:38)


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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#2 2014-12-12 17:12:00

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2714
Website

Re: trail wind < tail wind

Occurs to me that the opposite of a trailing wind would be a leading wind. So both are blowing in the direction you are travelling, but the leading wind blows faster than you are travelling while the trailing wind does not?


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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#3 2014-12-14 14:31:52

kem
Eggcornista
From: Victoria, BC
Registered: 2007-08-28
Posts: 2851

Re: trail wind < tail wind

These eggcorners may have flipped the meaning. A tail wind blows in the direction of travel. A trailing wind, to my thinking, blows the other way.


Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.

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#4 2014-12-15 10:08:05

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2714
Website

Re: trail wind < tail wind

How so? Trailers of all sorts follow what they are trailing, don’t they?


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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#5 2014-12-16 23:34:31

kem
Eggcornista
From: Victoria, BC
Registered: 2007-08-28
Posts: 2851

Re: trail wind < tail wind

True. But trailers are behind, and something behind (and, unlike a trailer, not attached) would seem to withdraw from you if you continued in your current direction.


Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.

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#6 2014-12-17 09:07:50

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2714
Website

Re: trail wind < tail wind

It’s all relative, and all that. The further off from England, the nearer is to France.
.
I still can’t yet picture a trailing wind as blowing the other way.
.
(The Whiting’s next advice is probably as wise as it gets: don’t worry about figuring it all out, just enjoy the game: “Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance!”)

Last edited by DavidTuggy (2014-12-17 09:11:46)


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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