The Eggcorn Database - v. 0.5

Spotted in the wild:

• The popular salad made of shredded cabbage was originally “cole slaw,” from the Dutch for “cabbage salad.” Because it is served cold, Americans have long supposed the correct spelling to be “cold slaw”; but if you want to sound more sophisticated go with the original. (Brians, Common Errors)

Spotted in the wild:

• Q: What is holland day sauce? A: A rich creamy sauce made of butter, egg yolks, and lemon juice or vinegar is holland day sauce. (link)

Spotted in the wild:

• I found an eggcorn at brunch yesterday! My boyfriend asked me if I liked the holiday sauce on my poached eggs. I asked him to repeat himself so I could be sure of what I’d heard. Once I told him the actual name of the sauce, he said that he’d always wondered what holiday the sauce was originally from. (lolphysics on Eggcorn Forum)
• I grew up thinking hollandaise sauce was actually called “holidays sauce” because we only ever had it on holidays. (Manolo for the Big Girl site, on Arnold Zwicky's blog)

Spotted in the wild:

• So he’s saying Bush was a pansy waist? (link)
• [A:] Throughout the anglosphere the word “liberal” has been used scornfully for the past few decades …We all know that it’s used as a proxy term for socialist, panty-waist, etc. in the U.S. [B:] Not to nitpick, but isn’t the term “pansy-waist”? [C:] FWIW, I’ve seen “panty-waist” numerous times. Your comment is the first time I’ve ever seen “pansy-waist” in 40-something years of reading. (link)
• Ha ha, what a little pansy waste. Little suck up. (link)

Spotted in the wild:

• Some of Hungary’s local governments are also straddled with heavy Swiss-franc debts. (Malgorzata Halaba and Marynia Kruk, Dow Jones Newswires, Aug. 12, 2011)
• I do not blame teachers who are already straddled with a million other problem areas confronting students such as basic writing, discipline, and sustained focus. (Jerry Park, Black, White and Gray, Oct. 14, 2011)
• The United States is a country with a prosperous past, but also one straddled with an uncommonly uncertain future. (Philip Mooney, Daily Princetonian, Nov. 28, 2011)
• I hope you’re not one of the millions of college grads forced to move back home with their parents, unable to find a job and straddled with a mountain of debt, because what we’re going to be doing tonight will wake up the whole neighborhood! (Becca O'Neill, Splitsider, Dec. 12, 2011)
• While art often comes straddled with hefty commission, storage and insurance costs, it can serve as a fun portfolio diversifier, mixing decent returns with aesthetic pleasure. (James Pomfret and Lisa Yuriko Thomas, Reuters, Dec. 19, 2011)
• “As a result, suppliers have been straddled with higher-than-anticipated inventory levels and high development costs that cannot be offset by next-generation product sales,” Teichmann said in court documents. (Katy Stech, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review, Jan. 5, 2012)
• The MTA — straddled with dwindling revenues and high levels of debt — is desperate for the TWU to accept a series of cost-cutting measures. (Jennifer Fermino, New York Post, Jan. 12, 2012)
• The citizens of this town will once again be straddled with the burden. (Richard Gelber, Hackensack Chronicle letter to the editor, Jan. 12, 2012)
• But the company was straddled with £1.9bn of gross debt in the 2006 acquisition by Netcare, the South African healthcare group; Apax Partners, the private equity investor; and two property investors. (Robin Wigglesworth and Simon Mundy, Financial Times, Jan. 15, 2012)
• The reporters on the bus, now straddled with an unexpected new cost, fumed. (Chris Moody, Yahoo! News, The Ticket, Jan. 28, 2012)