« previous page
next page »

bandy » banty

Chiefly in:   bantied about

Classification: English – questionable

Heard on CNN by one of the young women announcers. Heard today (Aug 3, 2005), but have heard it in the past. She probably intends to say “bandied about”, and is mixing the word “bandy” with “banter”.

[Marked “questionable” while waiting for other instances beyond a possible one-time production error. CW.]

| 1 comment | link | entered by durk183, 2005/08/04 |

passed » past

Chiefly in:   past away

Classification: English – questionable

Spotted in the wild:

  • The Vatican says Pope John Paul II after developing a high fever has past away. (link)

Death marking off the past…

Edited by Ben Zimmer: Marked questionable, for the same reasons discussed by Arnold Zwicky regarding past » passed:

Larry Horn noted [on the American Dialect Society mailing list], “this one is endemic, as is its mirror-image (“past” for “passed”).” And I added, “indeed. and it’s hard to tell whether these are eggcornic or just spelling errors. the semantics is close, and they were originally the same word. see MWDEU on ‘passed, past’.”

| Comments Off link | entered by Sravana Reddy, 2005/07/31 |

qualm » quorum

Classification: English – questionable – vocalized /l/

Spotted in the wild:

  • Thanks for listening to my quorums about Seth. (NCD Tau Beta Sigma Secretary-Treasurer Report, 2000)
  • But at the end of the day, no mistake should be made: the twelve fraternal members of the SEC are at a crossroads, trying to balance their collective commitment towards being the most celebrated football conference in the nation with eradicating its newfound image of being maverick institutions with no quorums about bypassing a few NCAA rules. (Acceleration Online, Oct. 4, 2002)
  • I have no quorums about my disability. I’ve been wearing two artificial legs since 1947. (Lookout, CFB Esquimalt, Nov. 8, 2004)
  • Today we say that our society has no quorums about peoples sexual preferences. (Woman On The Edge of Time, review)

Marked questionable, since there doesn’t seem to be much of a semantic connection between _qualm_ and _quorum_… unless of course one feels uneasy about having the minimum number of members to conduct business.

| Comments Off link | entered by Ben Zimmer, 2005/07/20 |

scare » scar

Chiefly in:   scarred the heck out of

Classification: English – questionable

Spotted in the wild:

  • My cousin was pouring gas into the carb, when a flame jumped out of the carb and scarred the heck out of him. (link)
  • The first speaker, a Nigerian dentist with his own lucrative waterfront office by the Navy Yards in Washington, DC, scarred the heck out of me when he yanked through the air in an extracting gesture and said, “Politicians, my name is Ribadu and it is teeth extracting time”. (link)
  • We have had a bear take down a moose calf across from our driveway, scarred the heck out of the paperboy. (link)
  • Upset stomach, confusing visuals, rise in body temperature, etc, scarred the heck out of me. (link)

Analyzed or reported by:

Marked tentatively as “questionable”, since a blend with “scarred for life” is possible.

| Comments Off link | entered by Chris Waigl, 2005/07/04 |

hand » hat

Chiefly in:   try one's hat at sth.

Classification: English – questionable

Spotted in the wild:

  • I’m ready to breakout some feathers and beading needles and try my hat at making avian-inspired accessories! (link)
  • The boys caught glimpse of a mako feeding on the carcass so they tried their hat at baiting hook (with swordfish meat of course) and set about trying to feed the mako. (link)
  • First up, married participants Tracy and John try their hat at performing for the lens. Note: The participants perform naked. CW. (link)

Analyzed or reported by:

An idiom-related eggcorn that probably involves a [blend](itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/l…) with _wear one’s X hat_.

| 1 comment | link | entered by Chris Waigl, 2005/06/25 |
« previous page
next page »