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Chris -- 2018-04-11
The idiom “touch base,†meaning to contact someone for an assurance of some kind, presumably derives from baseball or from some other game (e.g., rounders) involving runners that venture to places on the playing field called bases. A base runner in a baseball game has to touch each base before proceeding to the next base. The runner also has to return to touch the starting base after a foul ball or before proceeding to the next base after a caught fly ball. We might hypothesize that the need to make secure contact with the base in baseball or one of these other games developed, by extension, into the general idea of making contact.
A large number of people seem to think that the idiom is not “touch base†but “touch based.†A hundred unique web pages record this alternate version, so it is not likely to be a simple misspelling. Three samples of this odd spelling are documented below. I’m guessing that these people have failed to make the gaming connection and are substituting an alternate image. Perhaps these people are thinking of a close relationship that is based on touching and using that as their explanation for their version of the idiom.
OS X forum post: “so the client touch based with me today saying that when he opens up a file in and goes to save it it wont let him,†(http://www.genmay.net/showthread.php?t=799958)
An escorts(?) forum post: “Not sure how to touch based with people but I guess we can be a bit creative in that department.†(http://www.merc.ca/vbulletin/archive/in … 1-p-5.html)
Posted response to a blog: “I recently touch-based with my coordinator whom I haven’t had the chance to talk for a while.†(http://ninjathet031207.blogspot.com/200 … chive.html)
Last edited by kem (2008-10-20 13:04:45)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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kem… I at first doubted the eggcornicity of the phrase, but perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps not understanding the sports analogy basis, the users have in essence created a new term. In each example, the phrase is used as if the person is meaning “I touched base with” someone but it’s as if they’ve created a new compound verb (to “touch-base” with someone) and put the ed on the end to make it past tense. In other words, I don’t believe they think they are “touching based,” they believe they are “touch-basing” with the person in question. Your postulation that it relates to a “touch-based” relationship seems plausible, but the business context of the usages in your examples makes that seem a little odd.
Last edited by JonW719 (2008-10-20 15:00:15)
Feeling quite combobulated.
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I think John is right that this is evidence of touch-base becoming a unitary verb, rather than a verb + noun. Kind of backwards from hiccup getting the past tense “hicked upâ€.
Which I ought to start one on, I suppose. Probably “touch bases†and “touch basis†as well. …
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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Sorry, I got in a hurry and gave bad examples. Only the second one in my list is not in the past tense. The second one is not an anomaly. A large number of the “touch based” citations are securely in the future and present tenses or in the infinitive. I’ll copy some of them below. I can’t see any reason to inflect “touch base” in these examples. I really think these people have in mind a relationship that is “touch based.”
“Simply fill out the contact form and I will touch based with you in the next couple of days”
“That is not a pretty sight and so, I have decided to touch based with those friends, co-workers and associated that were ahead of me”
“We use it to touch based with our business associates and friends”
“Kidzee had recently organised a Kidzee talent hunt at various locations of the country and managed to touch based with over 30000 kids and parents.”
“Too many thoughts will cloud what you are doing, and you will not truly learn to touch based with your reptilian brain”
“They are continuing to touch based with the colleges and universities in the area. ”
“One of my kids this morning also mentioned that in the lunchroom you not only see your friends, but it’s an opportunity to touch based with siblings as well”
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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Hmm. Interesting!! For the life of me, I can’t figure out what they are meaning (unless it’s a phenomena similar to some speakers’ tendency to make “height” into “heighth” and they are adding a mysterious “d” to “base for the same reasons). The “based” form seems so inherently past tense, I am having a hard time imagining what the imagery is that the speakers/writers are employing.
Feeling quite combobulated.
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