A sanitized eggcorn

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:46 PM -0400 9/2/09, Alice Faber wrote:
>A twitter posting by Tyler Keppner, New York Times beat reporter
>covering the Yankees:
>
>"Girardi on Mo's groin: "We'll give it a few days off and try to nip it
>in the rear end." Yes, he said that."
>
>I'm seeing this as "nip it in the bud" being eggcornized as "nip it in
>the butt" and then sanitized to "nip it in the rear end".
>--
>====================================================================
Yes, I'm sure Rivera's groin will be much happier to be nipped in its
rear end than in its butt.  This is a beautiful example on so many
levels!

LH

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org