Just heard on NPR (it was a blend)

[Gerald Cohen]

At 4:14 PM -0400 10/3/03, Barnhart wrote:
>"We're in a tailspin downwards."
>
>Can a tailspin go any way but downwards?  Is this perhaps a confusion or
>mingling of _downward spiral_ and _tailspin_?
>
>Has any been collecting mixed metaphors for the Usage Panel?

   This isn't a mixed metaphor but rather a syntactic blend (yes, from
"tailspin" + "downward(s) spiral"). For other examples of redundancy
produced by blending, cf. "rise up" (from "rise" + "get up"), "chase
after" (from "chase" + "run after"), "few in number" (from "few" +
"low in number"), "consult with someone" (from "consult s.o." +
"speak with s.o."), "full up" (from "full" + "filled up"), "pass by
(e.g. a house)" from "pass the house" + "walk by the house."

    I present these examples in my article "Contributions To The Study
of Blending," in _Etymology and Linguistic Principles_, vol. 1:
_Pursuit of Linguistic Insight_, which I edited and published,
pp.81-94. (The above examples appear on p. 89). -- Btw, although
self-published, this volume has received favorable scholarly reviews.

    I also published a monograph _Syntactic Blends In English Parole_ (178 pp.),
(= Forum Anglicum, vol. 15). Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang 1987.  ---
"Parole" in the title is used as the linguist Saussure did, i.e., to
indicate anything that is not part of the standard language
(dialectal features, slips of the tongue, individualisms, etc.). The
monograph presents some 2000 examples of syntactic blending that I
collected over a period of years.  The main insight that emerges from
the list (or, at least, I intended/hoped would emerge) is that
syntactic blending is a feature of speech that occurs more frequently
than has been recognized in the literature of general linguistics).

Gerald Cohen