[Ads-l] undo/undue

[Charles C Doyle]

In an appendix to the adolescent novel _Killer Species_, by Michale P. Spradlin (NY: Scholastic) [p. 228], I encountered this sentence:  "But working to undue the damage already caused by Dr. Catalyst is a big job."  The book, we may assume, has been professionally edited; Scholastic is a highly prestigious publisher of fiction for children and teenagers.

The phrase "undue the damage" gets some 7,100 RGHs.  It is not exactly an eggcorn, since the "due" element itself doesn't seem to have any semantic applicability.  It's just a pronunciation-misspelling (in some dialects).

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