Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
You are not logged in.
The Eggcorn Forum and the Eggcorn Database are currently in the process of being converted into static sites.
Once the conversion is complete, all existing posts are expected to still be accessible at their original URLs. However, no new posts will be possible.
Feel free to comment on the relevant forum threads.
Chris -- 2025-05-10
A friend of mine used this spelling in her blog, and I first thought to point it out as a careless error, but then it occurred to me that it sort of made sense, and then it clicked: eggcorn! I googled “footware” and came up with a number of hits. If I’m searching correctly, it also doesn’t seem to be in the Eggcorn Database or posted already in this forum, so here you go.
Offline
Welcome to the Fourm, colinski.
Footware seems somewhat parallel to housewares, giving it eggcorn potential, though it doesn’t follow the pattern of the more common silverware or software. As billyphuz says, it is ‘a ware for the foot,’ parallel to ‘wares for the house’; not ‘wares made of silver’ or ‘wares that are “soft” / flexible / not built in.’ Still, it seems like a genuine eggcorn.
I’m a bit surprised that someone would substitute ware for wear, however, given how common the latter is in everyday speech. (The British National Corpus features 521 instances of ware(s), versus 5,709 instances of wear(s). While I’m at it, I note there are 11 instances of housewares versus 64 of silverware and a whopping 9,387 instances of software.)
Then again, maybe the frequency and productivity of forms like software, hardware and wetware overcomes the semantic fit of menswear, evening wear and the like.
Offline