Topsy » top seed

Chiefly in:   grow like top seed

Classification: English – final d/t-deletion – idiom-related

Spotted in the wild:

  • “That’s what’s insidious about club drugs,” he says. “One: We didn’t recognize the problem. Two: It’s growing like top seed.” (Orlando Weekly, July 26, 2000)
  • The Amado Territory Ranch is anchored by an 11-room bed and breakfast inn, Amado Territory Inn, that has spectacular views and serene natural surroundings. The rest of the land was quickly leased by other vendors. “It just grew like top seed,” Art Gould said. (Arizona Daily Star, Jan. 5, 2004)
  • In fact, these grow ops, which are fuelled by organized crime, are growing like top seed right now under the current law, which criminalizes any kind of possession or trafficking of marijuana. (Parliament of Canada, Edited Hansard, Mar. 8, 2004)
  • “The commandos and the public order brigades sort of grew like top seed, very quickly, without much control, and without much training,” the American commander said. (International Herald Tribune / New York Times, Dec. 29, 2005)
  • [Robert Altman:] I get a bunch of actors together, I say, “Let’s do this—you be this character; oh, you want to do that? Okay.” It kind of grows like top seed. (Time Out New York, June 8-14, 2006)

Analyzed or reported by:

The original expression is “just grew like Topsy,” referring to Topsy in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, who “jes grew.” As the original referent of “Topsy” becomes less and less familiar, the term has been reanalyzed by some as “top seed,” which sounds like something that might grow quickly.

| 2 comments | link | entered by Ben Zimmer, 2006/08/10 |

dawn » dong

Chiefly in:   dong on s.o.

Classification: English

Spotted in the wild:

  • “At first it was just a fun thing to listen to your recordings, but then it finally donged on me that Victor is actually talking.” (link)
  • “Then it donged on me, Broadcom is providing the source code, the vendors just add their tweaks and change some logo’s.” (link)

Analyzed or reported by:

Liberman gives 14 examples from the net, and comments:

An “oops” page notes this as one of those cases where someone has “taken a common phrase or word and mutilated it”. The discussion highlights the poetic force of such mistakes:

The funny thing about this was that it was a former neighbor of mine whose name was Dawn. Putting aside the fact that she wasn’t the brightest beam shining through the window, I think she hit on something here. I mean, when something dawns on us, isn’t it often like a “DONG!” on the head?!?

—–

Nice justification for the eggcorn.

| 1 comment | link | entered by Arnold Zwicky, 2006/08/09 |

landline » LAN line

Classification: English – final d/t-deletion

Analyzed or reported by:

  • Barbara Wallraff (Atlantic Monthly "Word Court" column for September 2006)

Wallraff reports:

Suzanne Staszak-Silva, of Scotch Plains, N.J., writes: “My husband and I have a dispute regarding the use of the term landline. When people receive or make calls on a cellular phone but decide they would like to take the call on a phone connected to the wall via a phone jack, they usually refer to this phone as a landline. My husband says this is incorrect and the right term is LAN (local-area network) line. I say he’s wrong. I think people use landline to denote a phone that is connected to the large brown poles that line our streets, and that LAN line refers to computer connections. Who is correct?”

You are. Anyone who doesn’t want to call a phone line a phone line ought to call it a WAN (wide-area network) line. And thanks for the new eggcorn.

—–

This one is not easy to search for, because “LAN line” is a high-frequency expression, abbreviating “local area network line”, a line (telephone line or cable) serving a local area network; such connections involve lines only indirectly, usually wirelessly, rather than having computers directly plugged into a phone line.

As for Wallraff’s advice, anyone who wants to refer to a phone directly connected to a phone line should call it a landline phone. WAN lines are something else.

In any case, Staszak-Silva’s husband has improved on “landline”, with its unclear connection to land, by eggcorning it to “LAN line”, using a term he’s familiar with.

| 7 comments | link | entered by Arnold Zwicky, 2006/08/09 |

pustule » pus jewel

Classification: English

Spotted in the wild:

  • my face is sore and i dont like having big pus jewels on my face. (TalkBass forums, Mar. 2, 2003)
  • It barely hurts at all though and doesn’t seem inflamed, except it gets a weird pus-jewel type bubble when I wear my glasses, but that doesn’t hurt either. (Vegan Represent forums, Apr. 25, 2003)
  • The only thing they can do is pop them one by one and remove the pus jewel inside to stop them spreading if they do not clear up on their own. (Essential Baby forums, Sep. 1, 2004)
  • Two days ago a nice sized pus jewel popped up on Mr.Eliot’s ring finger. (Knee deep in the hoopla, May 3, 2005)

Analyzed or reported by:

The word-part “-tule” has been reinterpreted as the word “jewel”. Only five or so Google web cites, but they look firm. [From Arnold Zwicky, who posted a duplicate of this entry just seconds after Ben posted his. As Ben said on ADS-L: Just think, if this had been noted on Language Log a few years ago, we might all be referring to “pus jewels” instead of “eggcorns”…]

| 2 comments | link | entered by Ben Zimmer, 2006/08/09 |