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Chris -- 2018-04-11
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Just encountered the word ranshakle – spelled without the letter c, while playing Prolific on Facebook. (Prolific is an obsession, for those unfamiliar it’s a boggle-style word game played against others online.)
Ranshakle is in the SOWPODS dictionary, and google searches turn it up used as I personally am used to seeing ramshackle, most of these sightings seem to be from UK “speakers.”
I could see how ramshackle might be an eggcorn of ranshakle, though I have no idea then what the etymology of ranshakle would be.
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Just for the sake of completeness, I thought I might point out this one…
ramsack for ransack by booboo Contribute! 7 2007-06-05 21:49:17 by patschwieterman
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For what it’s worth, the Oxford English Dictionary gives ramshack as a regional (US south and midlands) variant of ransack, dated from 1893. It gives ransackle as a (Obs. exc. north. dial.) variant of to ransack from 1621.
OED dates ramshakle from 1820 and ramshackled from 1675. Both have the same meaning. The first quotation for the latter reads:
1675 S. SEWALL Diary 31 July (1973) I. 12 A window which was all ranshacled.
It seems a variety of spellings have been used for several centuries.
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