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foreword » forward

Classification: English

Spotted in the wild:

  • “WritersDigest.com - The home of Writer’s Digest Magazine … Snoopy’s Guide to the Writing Life … edited by Barnaby Conrad with a forward by Monte Schulz” (link)
  • “Berkeley: The New Student Revolt, Book’s Forward by Hal Draper from the Free Speech Movement Archives Web site.” (link)
  • “Or, as the author says so eloquently in the forward to the book, …” (link)

Analyzed or reported by:

  • Carl Hart, 26 February 2005 (link)
  • Johannes Fabian (p.c., 17 April 2006)

The first cite is the one given by Hart; it’s from the Writer’s Digest website, where “forward” seems to be used pretty consistently. Fabian noticed an occurrence in the New York Times (not given here).

The analysis of “foreword” is probably opaque to most modern speakers, so there is a real temptation to treat occurrences of it as occurrences of its homophone “forward”. After all, a foreword comes forward of, in front of, the body of the book.

[Added 14 April 2009: this one seems to be very common. Using data unearthed by Eugene Volokh, Victor Steinbok calculates that 9% of the law review articles between 2000 and 2009 that have a foreword list it as “forward”.]

| 6 comments | link | entered by Arnold Zwicky, 2006/05/02 |

track » tract

Classification: English – final d/t-deletion

Spotted in the wild:

  • “What software do you guys use to keep tract of the many different programs you all are in? I mean as far as the dividends and spends go and…” (link)
  • “Tenure Tract Associate/Full Professor, Genetics Specialty. School of Nursing. Clemson University invites applications for the position of…” (link)
  • “Other options include recessed or tract lighting above buffets or breakfronts.” (link)

Analyzed or reported by:

  • Wade Hassler (link)
  • David Bowie (ADS-L, 2 May 2006)

Hassler’s comment (of 25 February 2005) in the database cited “keep tract of”. Bowie reported: ” I just got final projects in from the students in my graduate class, and one of them consistently writes about ‘tracts’ within the English major in her introduction,” and added that “‘tracts’ makes sense, if one thinks of the definition of something relatively small and separate from other tracts in the area.” Following up on Bowie, Larry Horn cited “tenure tract” (seconded by Beverly Flanigan, who noted that this one had even been used by members of her department) and “tract lighting” (lighting appropriate for tract houses, presumably).

The opposite reshaping, “tract” >> “track” is already in the database, here.

| Comments Off link | entered by Arnold Zwicky, 2006/05/02 |

en-suite » un-suite

Variant(s):  unsuit, unsuite, un-suit

Classification: English

Spotted in the wild:

  • Double, with Un-suite - bills included. & Including CLEANER , very clean - Must SEE (£95 pw) (Gumtree.com, London flatshare ad (title), April 24, 2006)
  • The bathroom is shared by only two of the housemates, as one room is un-suite (not the room on offer). (Gumtree.com, London flatshare ad, April 26, 2006)
  • A fantastic opportunity to let this 3 bedroom 2 bath flat in this sought after development close to all local amenities the property benefits from wooden floors, newly decorated through out to very high standards, good size master bedroom with fitted wardrobes and un-suite bathroom with power shower, off street parking and access to lovely communal gardens. (Barnard Marcus Highgate Lettings office (UK))
  • Master bedroom has a double bed with a well fitted un-suite bathroom. (Benidorm Apartments)

Semantically, _un-suite_ (and variants) is not particularly transparent. A possible explanation might be that this is the only way that occurred to the writer of parsing the prefix _en_.

| Comments Off link | entered by Chris Waigl, 2006/04/26 |

urologist » eurologist

Variant(s):  eurology

Classification: English

Spotted in the wild:

  • On Friday I leave for Paris, we are doing a congress at the Palais des congrès de Paris in the center of the city. It is the European Cancer Congress, which means seeing loads of images and really gross other stuff, … but I guess that goes with being a technician at a lot of the medical congresses. Oh well , …. few images can be worse then the ones I saw at the last crongress on Eurology that I worked at, .. yuck! (blog entry, October 22, 2005)
  • i dont want to have to stay in the hospital again. that was not fun at all. all the docs in eurology were assholes. and chad couldnt stay the whole night with me. (myspace entry, March 28, 2006)
  • I told Aunt Mulger about it and she set up an emergency appointment with the eurologist tomorrow. I guess I’m okay though. The eurologist woman receptionist told her not to worry until tomorrow. (blog entry, August 11, 2005)

My thanks, again, to Kevin Marks, who caught and reported the following contribution, which was made by user emory on the IRC channel `#joiito` on `irc.freenode.org` on April 18, 2006:

> 12:40:18 em0ry: but i don’t like having things in my rectum.
> 12:40:33 em0ry: my eurologist, who looks like Steve Fucking Forbes, has small hands, thankfully.

emory, who lives in the U.S., later claimed this was a typo without deeper significance, and that it was a coincidence that he was thinking with some regularity about Europe at the moment.

| 2 comments | link | entered by Chris Waigl, 2006/04/19 |

flap » flat

Chiefly in:   cat flat

Classification: English

Spotted in the wild:

  • I have two cats and a third one that keeps getting into my house, do you know if there is a cat flat that I can get that electroncally lets my two cats in only ? (rec.pets, Jan 21, 1997)
  • A tom cat has (on two nights in succession) entred my house through the cat flat and terrorized my 3 yr old female cat. (rec.pets.cats.health+behav, Oct 25, 1999)
  • They have a cat flat and the 4 others came straight in as soon as they heard us. (pet-manual.co.uk forum)

I came across _cat flat_ for _cat flap_ in an ad offering to share a house in London. A large majority of the occurrences appear to be typos, though some might not be, and instead relate either to the flat shape of the object or the idea of accommodation specially devised for a cat (a _flat_ in BrE corresponding to an _apartment_ in AmE).

| Comments Off link | entered by Chris Waigl, 2006/04/19 |
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