Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2025-05-10
I thought this might make an interesting “flounder”: Animals that are allowed to move around and graze freely (i.e., without being closely constrained) are said to be given “free range.” It sounds suspiciously similar to “free reign”—which might also describe those animals.
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There actually are a couple of hits for “free reign animals.” Weirdly, the only hits for the chicken version were from people talking about the same verbal possibility as you.
But Joe, are you suggesting that “free range chicken” etc. had its start as “free reign”? If that were the case, I’d expect the phrase’s origins to leave more of a trace.
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Actually, I didn’t have any good theory about the origins, so I left it ambiguous. Seems that “free range” could easily have emerged independently of “free reign” or as a subliminal offshoot.
Last edited by jorkel (2007-09-25 08:24:11)
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I’m not a horsemen, unless you count occasional rides on “autopilot” horses at tourist attractions, but I did grow up in a rural environment. The original term is “free rein,” and has nothing to do with free range, per se. (I typically hear “free-range” applied to chickens, meaning, in theory, that they weren’t raised in cages.) If a person is riding a horse and loosens his or her grip on the reins and lets the horse wander where it wants to, that is giving the horse “free rein.” So this image has passed into a metaphorical use meaning, basically, allowed to do what one wishes; without constraints.
Feeling quite combobulated.
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You’re right; we had posted on “free rein” vs. “free reign” before, and I stuck myself with the eggcorn this time around.
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