roll » role

Chiefly in:   role call

Classification: English

Spotted in the wild:

  • Unsure of the condition of my men, I ordered a role call. (link)
  • The Role Call of Faith from Hebrews 11 listed the individuals who took action that demonstrated their faith. (link)
  • Take attendance: role call, clipboard, sign in, seating chart. (link)

It is possible to equate ‘role’ with ‘duty’, and since ‘roll call’ is mostly used in a military context, there could be some semantic association being made with soldiers’ “roles” in battle. It’s particularly transparent in the second quote above — the individual choosing to take on a role that displays faithfulness. But I’m not sure how much of an eggcorn it is in the classroom context — any ideas?

| link | entered by Sravana Reddy, 2005/07/02 |

Commentaries

  1. 1

    Commentary by Jason Parker-Burlingham , 2005/09/15 at 12:56 am

    It’s also possible to observe this eggcorn in the wild as “fill [a] roll”. Sometimes the author will be speaking about using camera film, but often not.

    Google lists 1000 possible eggcorns versus 100,000 correct uses.

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