Eggcorn Forum

“To bolster” means “to support,” etc., and it’s not a common word in everyday speech. “To boost” isn’t quite synonymous, but some of its meanings are semantically similar. And a “booster” is someone who supports something. And there are lots of hits for “to boost the argument [...].” (Is the latter eggcornish in any way? I’m not touching it….) So the substitution of “booster” for “bolster” in idioms like “to bolster the argument” seems fairly predictable.

“To booster” isn’t in MWonline or the OED. Not all uses online are a substitution for “bolster”; some medical professionals seem to use it to mean “to give a booster shoot.” And that of course complicates the picture because “to booster” in the medical sense also means something similar to “to bolster.” We may have layers of overlap here.

This is difficult to count, but non-medical instances are fairly rare – I’d guess a few dozen tops.

I think Prof. Zwicky might argue that this is a flounder rather than an eggcorn, but I’m posting it anyhow. Have at it!

Fairly clear examples:

He was the one who quoted a black shrink to booster his argument which is typical of white conservatives.
http://www.racialicious.com/2007/02/02/ … -students/

This would booster the
theory that the moon was created as the result of a collision of a
Mars-sized body with early Earth in which a part of the Earth’s crust was
flung into orbit and later coalesced into the moon.
http://four.pairlist.net/pipermail/unmu … 00002.html

Here the photographs served to booster the claim by the Railroad on the ease of constructing a Southern route and developing the land.
http://www.andrewsmithgallery.com/exhib … n_one.html

First is the use of HCV to booster the scientific argument of nosocomial infection [1-4]. This logic would be successful in a normal situation, but in the Libyan outbreak this appears to be an unsound reasoning.
http://www.ljm.org.ly/modules.php?name= … e&sid=1188

Examples that might land me in hot water:

Active contact with parents and colleges was found to booster the effect of school level academic standing on the selectivity of college to which students are admitted.
http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p20215_index.html

Most children are immunized with the DTaP vaccine, but shots to booster the vaccine are sometimes necessary for older students.
http://www.10tv.com/?sec=health&story=s … 09135.html

This migration boostered the Jewish population of Israel in relation to indigenous Arab population.
http://ianwestbrook.blogspot.com/2006/1 … tions.html