Eggcorn Forum

Gathering up the classic swoops, of varying eggcorn credibility, that have fell here: A full swoop (see post 177), a foul (see also foul), a fail swoop, a fowl, a swell swoop and a felt swoop.

The list is not exhaustive nor necessarily genitive; there are several other entries here and there difficult to keep track of. This post contains two more, felled and fellow swoops. A stealth version based on an alternative definition of fell completes this entry.

If felled represents a new image for fell, might it be in the sense of killing two birds with one stone in this case?

Software board: Will Versions allow me to add all these files in one felled swoop to my folder without having me individually add them all?
(http://groups.google.com/group/versions … e?lnk=raot)

Fellow swoop gets 287 ughits , but I think it is a semantic pail – I can’t get the sense of it, unless it is related to a “one-man job”? Incidentally, I thought it best to use pail just until an uncompromised term can be proposed.

Gamer site: With enough firepower, entire bridges can be taken down in one fellow swoop.
(http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3162178)

Security blog: In one fellow swoop the company has had all its most critical information stolen…
(http://blog.scorpionsoft.com/blog/2009/ … nment.html)

Blog: In one fellow swoop, the work that took Hitler seven years could be accomplished in seven minutes.
(http://www.angelfire.com/journal2/edito … srael.html)

Game board: It’s important to note that this is all done in “one-fellow-swoop”. In other words, your opponent doesn’t get a chance to respond or chain to your Contact Fusion when you declare it to maybe destroy one of your monsters.
(http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Does_contact_ … _your_hand)

Fan fiction: Hercules finished his food, “Why is it, of all the people I’ve met, you’re the only who will surprise me and get under Iolaus’ skin in one fellow swoop?
(http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4471280/1/M … ess_Simple)

More interesting to my mind is a related jorkelian “stealth eggcorn”, where the imagery but not the spelling is altered. The fell a tree signification has been discounted in previous discussions of fell swoop, which only goes to show.

Question: What does “one fell swoop” mean?
Yahoo answers: it mean with one action. It was derived from lumberjacking. Chopping down a tree was also referred to as felling a tree. One fell swoop would be the last swing of the axe that would bring the tree down. it is the final action or single action that would make the tree fall, because all the swoops of the axe before it didn’t make it fall so it was referred to as one fell swoop. Hope that helps and I can’t believe some of the crap that I actually remember lol.
(http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/in … 651AADOeKr) (Yahoo answers is the site name, not my comment)

Incidentally, to fell a potential future swoop before it is swept, a plunging attack of a bird of prey is both
a swoop and a stoop, although the words come from different roots. The “one fell stoop” which occurs on the web is legit and not a confusion. I admire the following, the first for injecting the notion of descending to dispense wisdom, the second for another obvious play.

Racing blog: With perfectly reasoned argument and in one fell stoop you cut through all the bullshit and spin (link lost!)

There is no John, there is no Katrina orphan, but Child Protective Services needed some donations, so they made up the story, making a mockery of Christmas, orphans, and the Katrina disaster all in one fell stoop, as in STOOPID.
(http://74.125.93.104/search?q=cache:Wt4 … =firefox-a)