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Chris -- 2018-04-11

#1 2021-05-22 14:46:56

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2715
Website

peel < peal

Unsurprisingly, it is in Paul Brians’ list , but doesn’t seem to be discussed elsewhere on the site. It is not uncommon, and has appeared more than a few times in published works:

...clouds boiling down from the sky. By the first peel of thunder we are drifting …

the peels of the Liberty Bell

As she was opening the door she heard a dreadful chord followed immediately with more peels of laughter.

a flash of lightning split the sky, followed seconds later by a peel of thunder rolling overhead.

It is probably mostly just a misspelling (“ea” and “ee” both being extremely common spellings for the [i] vowel in English), but may have some grounds for eggcornic interpretations. I get a bit of the picture of ripping off peels of laughter or thunder being like a piece of ripe fruit spinning so fast the skin comes loose and suddenly peels off in strips.


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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#2 2021-05-26 02:19:37

Peter Forster
Eggcornista
From: UK
Registered: 2006-09-06
Posts: 1224

Re: peel < peal

I get a bit of the picture of ripping off peels of laughter or thunder being like a piece of ripe fruit spinning so fast the skin comes loose and suddenly peels off in strips.

I can see/hear/smell/feel that. Have we a toe or two in the scented waters of synaesthesia I wonder? Peal, both noun and verb, is also a plural for a set of bells. The connection with fruit came early:
Oranges and lemons,
Say the bells of St Clement’s . . .

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