all fours » our fours

Classification: English – vocalized /l/

Spotted in the wild:

  • We fell a hundred times before we learned how to walk. If we had become impatient and given up, we would be crawling on our fours even today! (link)
  • In the entire three days we needed to get to the summit, we crawled on our fours, over snow and ice slopes between 65 and 70 degrees steep. (link)
  • we walked and we moved on our…on our fours (knees and hands) until we found a…a space in the center of the deck (link)

Two remarks. (1) I have categorized this, quite hesitantly, as “vocalized /l/”; I invite correction or amplification on this point. (2) Somewhat unusually for this database (as far as I know–again, I invite correction), the third of these cited occurrences–”we walked and we moved on our…on our fours (knees and hands)”–is from transcribed speech, namely, an oral history “made by Robert Shuster and Steve Gertz and … completed in November 1993″ (Shuster was and is the archivist of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College, Illinois, USA); the notes before the transcription make it clear that the “…” represents the speaker pausing, and that the gloss “(knees and hands)” was the speaker’s, not the transcribers’.

| Comments Off link | entered by Lee Rudolph, 2005/11/13 |

row » roll

Chiefly in:   cornroll

Variant(s):  corn roll, corn-roll

Classification: English – vocalized /l/

Spotted in the wild:

  • [an African American hair stylist advertises that they can do] “corn rolls for you.” (West Philadelphia local paper, Westside Weekly, 2-8 September 2005)
  • “Hi, I really want to learn how to cornroll hair and add extensions to it.” (link)
  • “With grain, a lot of eye make-up, or those ladies who corn-roll their hair like a lot of little braids, and hang Lifesavers and lights and buttons and …” (link)
  • “I really want a crazy hair style like corn rolls but i have hair that is only the lenght of my chin.” (link)
  • “Caramel Expressions, Yorktown, “VA, Virginia - Owner operated. Specialties include silk twists, pixie braids, box braids, micro braids, corn rolls, kin…” (bizyooo, Business Yellow Pages)

Analyzed or reported by:

  • Damien Hall (American Dialect Society mailing list, 5 September 2005)

“Cornroll”/”corn roll”/”cornroll”, both noun and verb, referring to an African American braided hairstyle that has now spread more widely, is a natural reshaping of the original “row” version, since the braiding involves rolling the hair through the fingers (though the result is not something that would normally be called a roll — but other hairstyles are so called). The phonology is that of /l/-vocalization, which figures in other eggcorns reported on here.

Google web searches (on 5 September 2005) show fair numbers of “roll” spellings in association with the word “hair”:

“corn roll”: ca. 408, vs. “corn row”: ca. 5,390

“cornroll” (including “corn-roll”): ca. 742, vs. “cornrow” (including “corn-row”): ca. 24,100

In contrast, there were only three “corn role” and four “cornrole” (mis)spellings in association with “hair”. And only one relevant “corn roe” and three “cornroe” misspellings.

[CW, 2005/09/05: Arnold Zwicky and I entered this eggcorn within one minute of each other. I have added some examples to his entry and deleted the duplicate.]

| 1 comment | link | entered by Arnold Zwicky, 2005/09/05 |

wide » wild

Chiefly in:   wild awake

Classification: English – vocalized /l/

Spotted in the wild:

  • This generation is wild awake and are willing and able to resist tyranny and sadism exhibited by the likes of Dr. Chinwoke Mbadinuju. (Nigeria World, Jan. 30, 2002)
  • If Jesus in the gospel in the time of agony turned to friends and they were sleeping, I hope that the three Sisters will say, “In our agony they turned to some friends and the friends are wild awake and willing to help and to be with them.” (Homily of Bishop Luis Antonio G. Tagle, May 5, 2003)
  • Mr Wilson said the “Ghanaians are wild awake this time as far as politics and electoral issues are concerned unlike previously when people were deceived to vote for parties”. (Ghana Web, Jan. 3, 2004)

Analyzed or reported by:

Appears common in some varieties of World English (e.g., in Africa).

See also while » wild.

| Comments Off link | entered by Ben Zimmer, 2005/08/23 |

stow » stole

Chiefly in:   stole away

Classification: English – vocalized /l/

Spotted in the wild:

  • “Lemuel Horlick” was a stole-away on ship to Newfoundland, st Johns… in 1840. (Heartstone online review, Apr. 22, 2001)
  • I know that they were both born in Galway County, Ireland and Patrick came to New York, New York as a stole away on board a ship. (LaSalle County Illinois Queries, Dec. 10, 2001)
  • It had been a long journey from America aboard the container ship and as a stole away he didn’t exactly enjoy luxury accommodations aboard ship. (Aozos forum, Jan. 28, 2005)

It’s understandable why the relatively uncommon term _stow_ in _stow(-)away_ might be replaced with _stole_, based on the phrasal verb _steal/stole away_ (‘to leave furtively and stealthily’).

| Comments Off link | entered by Ben Zimmer, 2005/07/26 |

drawl » draw

Chiefly in:   Southern draw

Classification: English – vocalized /l/

Spotted in the wild:

  • Anywhere else in the world it would be called “win wood” Oklahoma, but here it’s “winnie wood” and we all talk like this (said in a kind of southern draw). (Susquehanna University commencement address, May 16, 2004)
  • As the slide show flipped by with illustrations of the colorful towns and people in the 1920’s, Franzwa, in his bolo tie, narrated in his slow southern draw. (Northeast News Gleaner, Philadelphia, PA, June 10, 2004)
  • While his southern draw and redneck tendencies cannot be denied, I think he is a rather progressive voice especially compared to the crew he runs with and the audience he appeals to. (Flow, Univ. of Texas Department of Radio-TV-Film, May 7, 2005)

For speakers of some dialects, _draw_ and _drawl_ are homophonous or nearly so. (In some cases, _Southern draw_ may represent a pronunciation spelling imitative of the speech pattern so described.) The semantic connection between the two words is strong, since a _drawl_ is usually identified by the _drawn-out_ pronunciation of vowels. In fact, the word _drawl_ may have originated as a frequentative form of _draw_ (cf. _drag_, _draggle_).

See also drawl » brawl.

| Comments Off link | entered by Ben Zimmer, 2005/07/26 |
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