The Eggcorn Database - v. 0.5

Spotted in the wild:

• An obviously brilliant flautist, he dressed up like the Pipe Piper in a dirty raincoat and played his flute whilst undertaking flamingo like stances. (link)
• Hamelin(also written as ‘Hameln’ in German) is known as the famous city of the pipe piper whose story many of us have heard. (Free-Minds.org)
• King Rat encorporates the old myth of the Pipe Piper and I really enjoyed Mieville’s version of Pipe Piper character, he is vicious, but in the end never really explained. (link)
• Our newest baby is sometimes referred to as the grandchild of our Pipe Piper (as shown below). (link)

Spotted in the wild:

• While I agree that comparisons between Al Queda and a trained national military force is short sided, dhoyt, I would not agree that religious martyrdom and cold blooded murder are in any way the same (besides, wouldn’t angry, indiscriminate terrorists be committing hot blooded manslaughter?). (MetaFilter)
• I don’t think there is one group of people that is greedy and then us poor people aren’t greedy that I think is silly, but I do think people are short sided. I think record companies are short sided and created and exasperate a lot of these problems so I hold my industry accountable and we always were the elite kind of store with out industry anyways. (link)
• “I think it is very short-sided to contaminate the environment for a short-term gain,” Post said. (Odessa American Online, 09 June 2005)
• If true, this practice is at once both unnecessary and incredibly short-sided. (link)
• I think that it’s very much a short sided “might makes right policy” that really needs to change. (link)

Spotted in the wild:

• Some of these trees stand out like the mighty sentinels of the ages, towering heavenward, 200 or 300 feet in height, straight as a narrow and free from limbs until the top is reached, and from four to six feet in diameter. (link)
• I had been making a conscious effort that week more than normal to fly straight as a narrow and to be the righteousness of God. (link)
• I only went as far as the nearest bit of tidal water, which thanks to the magic of the Hundred Foot Drain (which runs straight as a narrow forty miles from Denver Sluice up to Earith) is only actually about ten miles away. (link)

Spotted in the wild:

• She who seeks to coexist with her avatar must follow the straight and arrow. (link)
• Left with nothing, and realizing what he has lost, he quickly goes on the straight and arrow. (link)
• The media serve as a watchdog to keep political leaders on the straight and arrow. (US Senator Chuck Grassley, Iowa)
• “If I’m keeping the straight and arrow and I’m not doing anything wrong there should be no reason why they can’t go through and read my instant messages,” says his daughter, Jamie. (CBS News)

Spotted in the wild:

• The bottom line is the New York Times was hosted on its own petard, the politically correct snobs. (link)
• Come February. Maartan et al will be hosted on their own petard. There will be no where left to run, no one left to buy off, no one left to blame. (link)
• That is why turnaround stops once the side who started it realizes that they have just been hosted on their own petard and it is not worth the pain. (link)
• Too late to change it now. And no, I am not one of those writers that will go back and rewrite an already published book years later because I’m not happy with it.
  So what is a writer to do when you’re host on your own petard, and in print? (Laurell K. Hamilton, Ballantine Books / Random House)
• Unfortunately, a gunpowder explosion rather literally hosts him by his own petard. (link)
• Perhaps you should get more than just a “bit” [of education], and stop hosting yourself by your own petard in public. (alt.astrology)
• Whether it was WMDs, Terri Schiavo’s memogate, Abu Ghraib or now this, in their haste to castigate those on the other side other political spectrum, all they ended up doing was hosting themselves on their own petard. (link)