The Eggcorn Database - v. 0.5

The phrase “Nobel laureate” has also spawned such contracted forms as Nobelaureate and Nobelauriate — these are perhaps modeled on the single-word _baccalaureate_. The respelling of _Nobeloriate_ makes this variant a bit more eggcorny, as it seems to be influenced by forms like _professoriate_ (also reminiscent of _secretariat_, _proletariat_, _commissariat_, etc.?).

It seems to have been propagated by the Lifehouse song. The original eggcorning might have resulted from the onomatopoeic quality of ‘cling’ to describe the similarly onomatopoeic ‘clink’, or perhaps, ‘clang.’ In addition, seeing that it was juxtaposed with ‘clatter’, the songwriters might have gravitated towards not using the same ‘a’ vowel sound (assuming they meant ‘clang.’)

ausgeflippt on livejournal further suggests:
“Though cling only has the meaning of “adhere to”, it’s not too far-fetched for this expression because it’s a derivative of the the German verb “klingeln”, which means to ring, to sound.”

I’m not sure this qualifies, but this morning on WFCR (Amherst station for National Public Radio), a reporter was talking about some local government squabble in Hartford. He used the term “holy cows” instead of “sacred cows.”

[Reclassified by Ben Zimmer as “not an eggcorn,” since it doesn’t really fit our working definition. One idiom has been confused with another due to the synonymous nature of “sacred” and “holy,” but there’s no phonetic similarity between the two forms.]

The first cite was provided by Neil Crawford on ADS-L. “I shutter to think” was also reported in a comment by Nigel Morphine on this site (24 February 2005). Googling “I shutter” nets quite a few web occurrences.

It could just be a misspelling, turning on American intervocalic flapping, which makes “shutter” and “shudder” homophones, or nearly so. The question is whether users of this spelling think shutters are involved. Lacking evidence one way or the other, I’ve marked it as “questionable”.

Alison Murie’s ADS-L query about the first cite led me to 561 Google hits, almost all of which look like genuine replacements for the idiom “whale away at” — involving the verb “whale”, which is of uncertain etymology but seems to have nothing to do with whales. Replacement by “wail” at least introduces a component of tear-producing pain resulting from striking or beating, a component that is especially vivid in the second cite above.