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#1 2007-12-20 09:44:01

kilinrax
Member
Registered: 2007-12-20
Posts: 1

'paired down' for 'pared down'

Seen in several places;

http://blog.clickz.com/070619-160641.html – “Sony Pictures Television is airing paired-down versions of its classic shows on MySpace.”
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showpost … stcount=2: – “I think those versions have been paired down a bit.”
http://www.investorvillage.com/smbd.asp … id=1105175 – “ASTM has paired down their analysts list finally.”

The phrase does appear to have a legitimate use, when referring to DNA base pairs: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg1 … -down.html

A valid eggcorn?

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#2 2007-12-20 18:40:24

jorkel
Eggcornista
Registered: 2006-08-08
Posts: 1456

Re: 'paired down' for 'pared down'

Welcome to the Eggcorn website kilinrax. What you suggest might be an eggcorn if we could come up with valid imagery for “paired down” ...otherwise it’s liable to be just a malapropism.

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#3 2009-07-14 12:20:35

fpberger
Eggcornista
Registered: 2006-08-16
Posts: 130

Re: 'paired down' for 'pared down'

I was just chasing this one a bit and didn’t find all that many valid hits for “paired down.”
However, I found lots and lots of hits for “pared up”. As in:

“The food is always fantastic and pared up with some really great wines. ” http://www.yelp.com/biz/the-restaurant- … vettsville

“She is pared up with Snyder, a very young detective who likes to drive the boats at top speed. “http://www.booksnbytes.com/reviews/brandt_darkwaterdive2.html

” At the Clean Tech Open the next big green idea is pared up with investors and labs.”
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?sectio … id=6117189

I tried to pick some examples here where the writer seems to have otherwise decent spelling… I suspect the error comes from association with the “pared down” idiom. I dont’ see many hits for “pared with” alone. (Except for several where the preceding com- is on a previous line.) I have trouble coming up with imagery to suit, though, so I’m not sure it’s a real eggcorn as opposed to just confusion…

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#4 2017-10-05 08:26:24

Dixon Wragg
Eggcornista
From: Cotati, California
Registered: 2008-07-04
Posts: 1375

Re: 'paired down' for 'pared down'

jorkel wrote:

What you suggest might be an eggcorn if we could come up with valid imagery for “paired down” ...otherwise it’s liable to be just a malapropism.

If you’re cutting something in half, yielding a pair of pieces, that could fill the bill, even if you keep cutting the smaller pieces in half, changing unities into pairs with a “pairing knife”.

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