Eggcorn Forum

Patent leather has been varnished to a glossy finish. I’ve always found this a weird use of “patent.” The word has a number of senses, but I guess the one most relevant here is “obvious, self-evident” – the idea being that such a shiny surface calls attention to itself. Apparently, other people also find this use of “patent” odd. “Pattern leather” makes sense to a certain degree – some fancy patent leather shoes do in fact have patterns of perforations (there’s probably a better word word for those little holes). In some cases, the writers might really have meant “patterned leather” rather than “patent leather”; since n, d, and l have almost the same point of articulation, it’s easy to imagine that the ”-ed” suffix could just get dropped in quick speech. But the fact that many of the websites selling “pattern leather shoes” have pictures allowed me to confirm that in some cases, at least, we’re definitely talking about patent leather shoes. (BTW, the lyrics in the final example are from the song “Bop-a-Lena” by Webb Pierce.) Examples:

This auction is for 2die4 very gently used (1 time) Manolo Blahnik blue pattern leather shoes. Manolo Blahnik shoes were filmed in many episodes of SEX in THE CITY.
http://cgi.ebay.com/975-00-Manolo-Blahn … dZViewItem

Little Missy is parading around in her new pattern leather shoes.
http://www.dcmilitary.com/navy/journal/ … 21998.html

Lots of pattern leather shoes were sold, which is now a thing of the past.
http://www.ioscomuseum.org/vignettes3.htm

I got my pattern-leather shoes on my hounddog feet
Me and bop-a-lena gonna walk the beat
To the whole jukebox in the be-bop shag
When we get a-goin’, gonna ball a jack
http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/ … 3600155A4E