Eggcorn Forum

Among the words that Kem, David T and Pat collected that displayed metanalytical accretion, transfer, or lopping of initial letters was an ewt/a newt. At the time, I looked for indications that a similar fate had befallen an eft, which is an developmental stage of the aquatic newt, one that can be found hiding under leaves or logs.

I’ve been digging into the ecology of amphibians this year, and it occurred to me to look into a possible n-metanalytical stage for an eft, which is the terrestrial (immature) stage of a newt. Interestingly, it turns out that eft was the original name for these beasts. It’s not clear, apparently, whether the shift to newt occurred while it was still a neft or when it became an ewt.

For those who don’t know their efts from a hole in the ground, there is a tendency to think of them as forest elves.

Ive had 4 red elf newts for about 6 weeks now …
enthusiast

The abundant newt, aquatic as an adult, has a terrestrial juvenile stage called a red elf.
From a book that should have known better

The trail is damp here, and toads and red elf salamanders abound.
Field journal

There were alot of these “red elf” salamanders. They were fun to hold as they didn’t run fast.
blog

A red elf is just getting warmed up.

There’s an interesting twist. The original suggestion to me that efts might be seen as cute little elves came from a French nature program for kids that I saw, where they puzzled over the origin of the name elfe rouge. They surmised it might come from the presences of “elfes” in the forest. So this is both an eggcorn and a poteau rose. The odd thing is that there is no word in French for eft; they just call them larvae, and the adults are called tritons.

Juvénile ou “elfe rouge”
caption, Amphibian atlas of Quebec