[Ads-l] Eggcorn: old stopping grounds

Peter Reitan pjreitan at HOTMAIL.COM
Wed Dec 2 16:53:10 UTC 2015


Felix Potvin was a goalie, whose job is to "stop" the puck; so "stopping grounds," here, looks like an intentional pun.
________________________________
From: ADSGarson O'Toole<mailto:adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
Sent: ‎12/‎2/‎2015 7:21
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU<mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Eggcorn: old stopping grounds

---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Poster:       ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Eggcorn: old stopping grounds
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old stomping grounds >> old stopping grounds
alternative formulation:
stomping grounds >> stopping grounds

Spotted in the wild:

Date: March 24, 1995
Newspaper: Toronto Star
Newspaper Location: Ontario, Canada
Article: Potvin plans triumphant return 'I should be well-rested . . .
should be better'
Author/Byline: Paul Hunter
Section: Sports, Page: E3

[Begin excerpt]
Felix Potvin returns to his old stopping grounds tonight.
Hungry for action after a forced March break, Toronto's No. 1
netminder will be back between the pipes and, he vows, back on his
game when the Leafs play host to the Winnipeg Jets.
[End excerpt]

While reading about "my old stomping grounds" I noticed an earlier shift:
stamping ground >> stomping ground

The semantics are closely aligned, so this earlier shift does not seem
to correspond to an eggcorn.

Garson

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