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short-sighted » short-sided

Classification: English – /t/-flapping

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)

Analyzed or reported by:

This is another one of the American English /t/-flapping eggcorns, like _deep-seeded_, _centripetal » centripedal_ etc.

In soccer and other varieties of football, _short-sided_ refers to a game that is played between teams of fewer than 11 players (sides of seven or five are popular). The American Youth Soccer Organization “recommends that all children under the age of 12 play short-sided (less than 11 players per team) soccer”. The Football Association (England) uses the _small-sided_ for games played by teams “of not more than seven players, one of whom is the goalkeeper”. Apparently, _short-sided_ is also a legitimate golf term.

[Information on _short-sided_ in football corrected after an error was pointed out by Mark Liberman on Language Log.]

| Comments Off link | entered by Chris Waigl, 2005/07/13 |

arrow » narrow

Chiefly in:   straight as a narrow

Classification: English

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)

Created via metanalysis, just like _an apron_ (from _a napron_).

Possible influence of the plural _narrows_ (AHD4):

>1. A body of water with little width that connects two larger bodies of water.
>2. A part of a river or an ocean current that is not wide.

See also _the straight and arrow_.

| Comments Off link | entered by Chris Waigl, 2005/07/13 |

narrow » arrow

Chiefly in:   the straight and arrow

Classification: English

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)

Analyzed or reported by:

The preceding _and_ is required. In casual speech, _and arrow_ and _and narrow_ are homophonous for many speakers.

Possible influence via the idioms _a straight arrow_ and _straight as an arrow_.

See also _straight as a narrow_.

| 3 comments | link | entered by Chris Waigl, 2005/07/13 |

hoist » host

Chiefly in:   hosted on/by one's own petard

Variant(s):  to be host on/by one's own petard

Classification: English – idiom-related

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)

Not a particularly frequent eggcorn. Some occurrences might in reality be (inadvertent) typos, a dropped i that isn’t caught by a spelling checker. But a number of them evokes the image of being placed in or confined to some uncomfortable situation by one’s own doing. The majority of the eggcornish uses employ the preposition _on_.

| Comments Off link | entered by Chris Waigl, 2005/07/13 |

spur » spurt

Chiefly in:   spurt of the moment

Classification: English – final d/t-deletion

Spotted in the wild:

  • It is very easy to punish the guilty at the spurt of the moment but to pardon someone and try to extract the evil genius of one’s mind is one of the noblest acts stressed by Islam. (link)
  • What’s the best city for wild, spurt of the moment partying? (TangerineMagazine.com)
  • The second drawback is that the populace often votes on the spurt of the moment. (link)
  • I am refering to those spurt-of-the-moment things people make up. (New Words from Foreign Languages)
  • He very rarely acts on spurt of the moment ideas. He’s definitely NOT impulsive / or compulsive like the others. (link)
  • My big brothers and their friends would sometimes, at the spurt of the moment, force-stop the elevator as we rode. (link)

Analyzed or reported by:

  • Mark Peters (link)
| Comments Off link | entered by Chris Waigl, 2005/07/12 |
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