Eggcorn Forum

Tactic < tacit is easy to document:

A tactic warning that you might not be able to be as responsive as if you were at a computer; that there may be more typos etc.

He had a feeling he had been given tactic permission and a warning all in one cryptic statement.

OSC criticizes TSX for casual proxy tactic approval. Reasons in Eco Oro decision effectively reverses TSX approval

Tactic consent is forbidden, for example pre-marked boxes on the web pages.

Tactic knowledge is unwritten, unmentioned, and invisible vast storehouse of knowledge held by almost every individual. It is determined by his or her emotions,

When he launched his party’s 2015 manifesto, the initial unfounded braggadocio was followed by a tactic admission of failure

Tacit is of course a highbrow word, rarely used by most humans unless you include lawyers in the category. (Can you still make lawyer jokes? Without getting sued?) Tactic is a more ordinary (though still a rather highbrow) word. Tacit is also probably more often a written word than a spoken one. The two words look alike more than sound alike. A fingerslip (metathesis of i-t to t-i ) gets you most of the way there, and another typo (repetitition of the c ) gets you the rest of the way; some cases may be tacitile typos of that sort, quite possibly spellchecker-aided. Imperfect reading (visual rather than motor-induced metathesis and repetition), falsely recognizing the more-familiar tactic where tacit was actually written, repeated to the point of establishing the error, is almost certain to be involved for some.
.
But eggcornish motivation is not hard to come by. Tacit means “communicated without being stated overtly”, which is a subtle and clever way of communicating (or deeming a person to have communicated.) Tactics too are effective, often clever ways of getting something done, and the less obtrusive the better. Many non-legal uses of tacit seem to mean “quiet, unobtrusive, subtle” rather than “silent”, which increases the overlap: a tactic consent might well be a nod or even a quiet word, and still count. For of course an overt but non-blatant communication (e.g. an quiet admission of failure in the last example above) might be a good tactical move.
.
Lacking a perp confession, of course I cannot prove such motivation is behind any of the examples. But it seems likely to me.
.
Reverse examples ( tacit < tactic ) exist:

[flashcard definition] a “defense” tacit that involves all of the wagons circling into a circle to block off and protect them from the possibility of Indians attacking.

Of course this maybe a defense tacit, but if true it seems to be a major scandal if armed thugs are now falsely arresting Clintons because of their blind hatred

[flashcard text] Offensive tacit employed by Germany during the early stages of WWII. Blitzkrieg.

There do not seem to be nearly as many of them (or maybe I just don’t know how to find them), and eggcornish motivation for them, if there is any, does not seem as clear to me.

Last edited by DavidTuggy (2019-02-10 04:22:41)