The Eggcorn Database - v. 0.5

All examples quoted here are from the OED; I first learned of this eggcorn from Ullmann (1962).

In the original samblind, the sam- is cognate with semi-; the original meaning is ‘purblind’, as Elyot indicates. The reanalysis of sam- as sand has not only altered the form of the word, but has influenced its interpretation as well, as exemplified by Shakespeare’s sand/gravel pun and by Johnson’s “small particles” definition.

The original samblind is long gone, and even the new form is labelled “arch., poet., and dial.” by the OED.

Suggested to me by Roger Shuy on 18 May 2005, who even supplied a photograph (from an acquaintance) of a sandhill crane, with the caption “What in the Sand Hill is going on here?”

A reshaping of the utterly opaque “Sam Hill” expressions is entirely natural. Still, the numbers from a Google web search are small:
“what in the Sand Hill”: ca. 91
“what in Sand Hill”: 4
“what the Sand Hill”: 2
(I’ve removed references to Silicon Valley’s Sand Hill Road, home to venture capitalists and the Stanford Linear Accelerator.)

For comparison:
“what in the Sam Hill”: ca.832
“what in Sam Hill”: ca. 685
“what the Sam Hill”: ca. 642
(though a fair number of these cites are mentions of the expressions, not uses of them).

As for the “Sam Hill” originals, Michael Quinion’s World Wide Words concludes: “The expression has been known since the late 1830s. Despite the story [about a Connecticut politician named Sam Hill], it seems to be no more than a personalised euphemism for “hell”.” (www.worldwidewords.org/qa…). The euphemism source is supported by the odd syntax of “Sam Hill”, occurring (like “hell”) with “what in the”, “what in”, and “what the”.

Suggested to me by Gabe Winant on 18 May 2005. The cites above are from the ca. 331 provided by a Google web search for “give free range to”. (Compare that to the ca. 16,500 hits for “give free rein to”.)

This one makes so much sense I’m surprised there aren’t more examples. The existence of the modifier “free(-)range”, as in “free range chickens”, undoubtedly encourages “give free range”.

See _rein »reign_ for comments on the susceptibility of “rein” to replacement.

Marked questionable, since I’m not sure what the semantic justification here would be. _Brawl_ in the sense of ‘noisy quarrel’ or ‘loud roaring noise’ does suggest an unpleasant sound, but that’s a bit different from the prolonged speech patterns associated with _drawl_. Is this possibly a blend of _brogue_ and _drawl_?

See also drawl » draw.

From the American Heritage Dictionary:

Irregardless is a word that many mistakenly believe to be correct usage in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing. Coined in the United States in the early 20th century, it has met with a blizzard of condemnation for being an improper yoking of irrespective and regardless and for the logical absurdity of combining the negative ir- prefix and -less suffix in a single term. Although one might reasonably argue that it is no different from words with redundant affixes like debone and unravel, it has been considered a blunder for decades and will probably continue to be so.—dictionary.com

[Reclassified by Ben Zimmer as “not an eggcorn,” as it is best understood as a blend of _irrespective_ and _regardless_.]