Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
As I have time, I want to look more closely at the list of potential eggcorns derived from wade’s quizzes (see post at http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/forum/viewtopic.php?id=390). If anyone else is interested in analyzing some of these, dive in. Right now I’m thinking about “pad down” as a replacement for “pat down.”
The earliest OED citations for the slang expression “to pat down,” meaning to frisk, are from the 1950s. As the examples below show, some people replace this expression with “pad down.” “To pad” can mean to make a journey (“pad the hoof”) or to move softly (“pad down the stairs”). There could be a transfer of the journey/move imagery of “pad” to the context of “padding down,” since frisking hands make soft steps over the body during a pat down.
Press release from Virginia: “While conducting a routine pad down for weapons and an Identity check, officers were advised that the suspect was wanted by the Manassas Park Police on three separate warrants.” (http://www.manassascity.org/Archive.asp?ADID=1711)
Forum post on cruise site: “Rick managed to get himself a padding down by a very FRIENDLY “NOT” security person.” (http://www.carnivalconnections.com/revi … ms/75.aspx)
Forum posting: “Breakin’ the law. have I done enough for a padding down procedure yet?” (http://www.bikeforums.net/archive/index … 49067.html)
Posting to a white pride web site: “what if someone is especially beautiful dont you think they will be singled out for a padding down?” (http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php?t=205542)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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It’s probably completely unrelated, but I wonder if footpad “a highwayman, a robber” has any effect on this?
There is also pad down “to beat down by walking, to tread down,” though OED calls this “chiefly Sc. and Irish English.”
I think kem’s analysis of softly moving feet transfered to softly frisking hands is the proper semantic analysis. I wonder if these others have some sort of priming effect, though?
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