« previous page
next page »

nit » knit

Chiefly in:   knit-pick , pick knits , knitwit

Variant(s):  knitpick

Classification: English

Spotted in the wild:

  • Well, it has come to pass that This argument is simply the domain of logicians and those who have no better time than to knit-pick. (link)
  • This treatment was unfair. He loved to knitpick about their cruelty, as his peers made it quite known he was full of craft. (link)
  • I do have one little knitpick regarding Ronon; I really wish Jason would pay more attention to his diction. (link)
  • Sorry to pick knits here but the “C” in 700c is not for centimeters but was originally used to denote the width. (link)
  • I don’t want to look like knitpicking on words but there is a difference between … Again this could be me knitpicking on words. (link)
  • Uhh, no. You’re a knitwit if you actually think anyone thinks like that. Or a real brainwashed feminist, one of the two. (link)

Analyzed or reported by:

  • Jess Anderson (Usenet newsgroup soc.motss, 10 September 2005)

Anderson supplied the first cite above (which also has the wonderful “have no better time than to VP”, presumably some kind of syntactic blend).

Even if you’re familiar with the word “nit” ‘egg or young of a louse’, you might well not realize that it participates in the idiom family “pick nits” , “nit(-)pick”, “nitpicking”. On the other hand, knitting requires meticulous attention to detail, plus occasionally picking apart previous work to fix errors, so the reinterpretation of “nit” as “knit” in expressions referring to concern with insignificant details is entirely natural. A web Google search produces thousands of examples.

[Edit, CW, 2005/10/14: Added _knitwit_. The occurrences are puns most of the time, such as in several knitting- and crafts-related trademarks; but some are genuine.]

| Comments Off link | entered by Arnold Zwicky, 2005/09/10 |

gamut » gamete

Chiefly in:   run the gamete

Classification: English – questionable

Spotted in the wild:

  • “The fight scenes run the gamete from spectacular to utterly ridiculous, but for the most part they are exciting and decidedly old school …” (link)
  • “His work has run the gamete from co-anchoring a daily special on the Plunderdome trial to covering the Little League World Series.” (link)
  • “… just for the ladies. Activities run the gamete, including shotgunning, flyfishing, rock climbing and much more.” (link)

Analyzed or reported by:

  • Michael Siemon (E-mail of 9 September 2005)

Siemon came across “Seeing my face run the gamete from shock to anger…” in soft-core porn of a pretentiously “literary” variety, then Googled and came across a surprisingly large corpus. A web search on 10 September 2005 pulled up ca. 227 pages for “run”, 323 for “runs”, 57 for “running”, and 82 for “ran”. With as yet no access to people who use the spelling GAMETE, I’ve marked this one as questionable: how do people pronounce GAMETE in this context, and do they think there’s some connection to reproductive cells?

In non-technical English, the word “gamut” is pretty much restricted to this one idiom, and most people don’t know about its etymological connection to musical scales, so it’s open to reshaping. In any case, the spelling GAMUT, with its single M and with U representing schwa, is odd, so you’d expect spelling errors, and in fact misspellings of “gamut” are fairly frequent. Here are some Google web figures for “run the ___” (as of 10 September 2005):

Vowel U preserved:

gamut (correct spelling) over a million
gammut 682
gamutt 22
gamute 27
gammute 0

Vowel E:

gamet 3,100
gammet 1,740
gamett 1
gamete 227 (as above)
gammete 0

Vowel I:

gamit 783
gammit 1,090
gamitt 0
gamite 0
gammite 0

Vowel O:

gamot 860
gammot 677
gamott 1
gamote 0
gammote 0

Vowel A:

gamat 63
gammat 70
gamatt 0
gamate 2
gammate 9

There are two clear tendencies in the misspellings: to double the M; and to use the vowel E preferentially, I or O less preferentially, A or U least preferentially. The moderately frequent misspelling GAMETE doesn’t double the M but does use the vowel E. However, it also has a final E, which is otherwise a rare feature of the misspellings; note that GAMMETE gets no hits. I suggest that these facts indicate that writers recognize that GAMETE is the spelling for a word of English — the other misspellings are not standard spellings of English words — which is then available (despite its own oddities of spelling) for the idiom “run the ___” ‘cover a complete range or extent’.

Which is only to argue that GAMETE can be expected as an occasional misspelling of “gamut”. It doesn’t attain eggcorn status unless we can show that there are some speakers who think that the word “gamete” is somehow involved in the idiom.

See also run the gambit.

| 1 comment | link | entered by Arnold Zwicky, 2005/09/10 |

cymbal » symbol

Classification: English

Spotted in the wild:

  • Tommy Lee was going crazy on the drums, and had busted a symbol and his snare within the first few songs. (mke online, Aug. 18, 2005)
  • I had a basic set of Premier drums, one mounted tom-tom, a snare drum and bass drum, one crash symbol and one rise symbol. (quoted in rec.music.rock-pop-r+b.1950s, Oct 31, 2004)
  • LUDWIG - DRUM SET FOR SALE
    Basic Ludwig 5 piece set with many accessories added!
    6 Sabian symbols with attachment boom stands
    4 crash symbols, 1 ride symbol, 1 splash symbol, cow bell
    extra tom tom with brand new skins on all tom toms
    double bass pedal ( top of the line ludwig )
    mint condition, 1 year old
    asking $1000.00 (FIRM) (ott.forsale, Mar 14, 2005)
  • Remo Enforcer 5 piece with symbols is a perfect set for beginners. It can be easily upgraded with a symbol pack. (reviewcentre.com, product review)

Analyzed or reported by:

| 1 comment | link | entered by Chris Waigl, 2005/09/10 |

depth » death

Chiefly in:   death charge

Classification: English

Spotted in the wild:

  • The battle scenes are well done and one feels they are in the sub when the death charges are hitting the ocean bottom. (wkrc.com, book review, March 2005)
  • I want to build a floating submarine plane. Are there any legal issues around that? I dont want the navy to drop death charges on me when I zip around underwater (doityourself.com forum)
  • There was one time the destroyers were dropping death charges after sighting a German Submarine. (link)
  • I’m not sure but I believe we also dropped a shallow pattern of death charges. (Phil Arneson's Action Report, 18 January 2001)

Analyzed or reported by:

The depth charge is an anti-submarine weapon.

| Comments Off link | entered by Chris Waigl, 2005/09/07 |

soaking » soak and

Chiefly in:   soak and wet

Classification: English – and «» in/en

Spotted in the wild:

  • I guess with him being 130 pounds soak and wet he wouldn’t understand. (prevention.com forum, Jul 6, 2004)
  • “Last month, my apartment was so hot that I sleep most of the time during the day because I’m sick,” said resident John Lemieux. “But I get up in the afternoon. I’m drenched soak and wet. My chair’s soak and wet. My bed’s soak and wet.” (NBC 10 News, August 4, 2005)
  • So, there we were both soak and wet and I was pissed. (getgirls.com, dating tips, February 23, 2004)
  • The bus driver said the word “shit” and all the soak and wet passengers had dropped jaws planted firmly on their faces. (link)
  • I have a few of all of these at my gym, but what really chaps my a** is the petite “skinny” girls that come in “hawaiian” and very pretty,, but they can’t weigh 100lbs soak and freakin wet! (link)

Analyzed or reported by:

The _soak_ part of _soaking wet_ is reanalyzed as an adjective, or maybe _wet_ is regarded as a verb.

There may be an influence of the song title _Soak-N-Wet_, also spelled _Soak’n Wet_ or _Soak’n'Wet_ on fan sites.

| 1 comment | link | entered by Chris Waigl, 2005/09/07 |
« previous page
next page »