landlubber » landlover, land lover

Classification: English

Spotted in the wild:

  • “Back Away From Me Loot Ya Land Lover! Pirate Treasure Surprise Jul 13 ‘03″ (link)
  • “Devised to pass the long hours at sea, our Captain’s Puzzles will keep even the land lover occupied.” (link)
  • “ARRRRRRRRRRRR! What about pirate talk, ye pansy landlover? Think of all the cool words pirates say, especially words essential to the English language.” (link)

Analyzed or reported by:

  • Ken Lakritz (link)
  • Brian Kane (On the newsgroup soc.motss, 15 August 2005)
  • Richard A. Strauss (link)

The “lubber” part of “landlubber” is opaque, which makes it ripe for reshaping into the more sensible “lover”. It’s hard to know how frequent this eggcorn is, since “land lover” and “landlover” have many literal occurrences, with the meaning ’someone who loves (the) land’.

| link | entered by Arnold Zwicky, 2005/08/17 |

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