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chic » sheik

Classification: English

Spotted in the wild:

  • By 1am every square inch was well and truly packed, and, amidst a very sheik laser show, Karl Blue stepped up to the decks to begin the peak-time set. (X-Press Online, July 1, 2004)
  • This trend has gone from the super sheik venues to mainstream. (Night in the Big City, Apr. 2, 2004)
  • Reese Witherspoon’s portrayal of ultra-sheik Elle Woods in Legally Blonde won hands down over the less-stylish Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich, Sandra Bullock in Two Weeks Notice and Cynthia Nixon in Sex and The City. (Princeton Review press release, Apr. 13, 2004)
| Comments Off link | entered by Ben Zimmer, 2005/02/15 |

whet » wet

Chiefly in:   wet one's appetite

Classification: English

Spotted in the wild:

  • It was excellent and just wet my appetite for my main course. (Barcelona On Line, Apr. 2001)
  • This was absolutely delicious, but what it mainly did was to wet my appetite for the main entrée. (Houstonian Online, Feb. 1, 2001)

Analyzed or reported by:

In some cases this may be a simple spelling error, but as Paul Brians notes, “it is natural to think that something mouth-watering ‘wets your appetite.’”

| Comments Off link | entered by Ben Zimmer, 2005/02/15 |

meet » meat

Chiefly in:   make ends meat

Classification: English

Spotted in the wild:

  • She had some good jobs, government jobs, and worked under the table to make ends meat. (Kensington Welfare Rights Union)
  • Their contribution to the family budget is badly needed to help them make ends meat. (Hard News Cafe, Dec. 21, 2004)

Analyzed or reported by:

| 1 comment | link | entered by Ben Zimmer, 2005/02/15 |

oft » off

Chiefly in:   off-times , off-repeated , off-quoted

Classification: English – final d/t-deletion

Spotted in the wild:

Analyzed or reported by:

(From a posting on the American Dialect Society listserv.)

Surely “off-times” makes perfect sense as a pronunciation spelling for “oft-times”, simplifying the geminate /tt/ as is common for most American speakers (MWCD marks the first /t/ as optional).

Semantically, however, the reanalysis is a bit more puzzling to me. I would think that replacing the archaic/poetic “oft” element with the more common “off” might alter the sense somewhat — from ‘frequently’ to ‘occasionally’ or ‘intermittently’ (evoking not just the hiatal sense of “off-time” but also “off-and-on”, “on again, off again”, etc.).

A Google search on “off(-)times” doesn’t really bear out my hunch, though perhaps one could discern a subtle semantic shift going on.

And it appears that “off-” is replacing “oft-” in other compounds where no geminate /tt/ is involved, such as “oft-repeated” > “off-repeated” or “oft-quoted” > “off-quoted”.

| Comments Off link | entered by Ben Zimmer, 2005/02/15 |

pique » peak

Chiefly in:   peak one's interest

Classification: English

Spotted in the wild:

  • Financing The American Dream
    Do You Have What Investors Are Looking For? Find Out How To Peak Their Interests (link)
  • I think those in charge of the computer aided curriculum should spend some time hanging out with high school or college level students to find out what peaked their interest in computers at an earlier age. (link)
  • Short Stories Peak Children’s Interest in Reading Newspapers (Newspaper Association of America)
  • NANCE HAXTON: Is there a danger that despite our generosity that Australians may forget and move on?
    TIM COSTELLO: Yes there is, and you would expect there to be a peaking of interest, of media attention, of compassion. (The Delphos Herald, OH, February 14, 2005)

Analyzed or reported by:

The substitution pique>peak is very common. It also makes much sense, once the verb _peak_ is equipped with a causative sense and allowed to take a second argument (an object complement), just like _walk_ in “walk the dog” or _grow_ in “grow potatoes”.

| 4 comments | link | entered by Chris Waigl, 2005/02/15 |
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