reticent/reluctant

[Laurence Horn]

At 1:57 PM -0400 5/28/09, Michael Sheehan wrote:
>CNBC continues to provide frequent eggcorns, always surprising to me
>since the staff is not composed of sluggards. This afternoon, this
>question was uttered: "Do you think people are reticent to invest in
>auto part companies because of government involvement?"
>
>Mike Sheehan
>verbmall.blogspot.com
>
I'm not sure "reticent" (= 'reluctant') still counts as an eggcorn
(if it did at first); as we've discussed on several threads, the new
sense is pretty well established by now (if not yet acknowledged
lexicographically--the OED's most recent cite for "reticent" is 1873,
which rather predates the emergence of the relevant sense).

LH

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