one good eggcorn deserves another

[Wilson Gray]

On Dec 11, 2004, at 4:12 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      one good eggcorn deserves another
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> Arnold's post on "carrot on a stick" vs. "carrot and (a) stick" adds
> one more reanalysis (in whichever direction) of this kind to an
> already bulging sheaf of them, many discussed on the list over the
> years, including inter alia "hand in/and glove", "puss in/and
> boots","in this day in age", "foot in mouth disease", "neck in neck",
> "tongue and cheek".   Then of course there are the reanalyses
> involving other representatives of the same [X at n] phonology, e.g.
> past participial -en ("black and red fish", "spittin'/spit an' image"
> < "spitten image" (see my recent Spitten Image paper in Am. Sp.),
> present participial -in (tender lovin'/love an' care, smokin'
> lightnin', clean shavin'), or non-morphemic -en, as in "Chip 'n'
> Dale" chairs < "Chippendale", "beckon call", "kitten caboodle", and
> so on.

Hm. I'd always thought that "foot-in-mouth disease" was a
deliberately-coined pun. FWIW, there's also Lightnin' Hopkins's "smokes
like lightnin'" over against Howlin' Wolf's "smokestack lightnin'."

-Wilson Gray

>
> But this all brings to mind another reanalysis I'd meant to post on
> that involves prepositions vs. conjunctions.  As we know, there's
> been one well-established reanalysis of "mano a mano" (< Sp. 'hand to
> hand') as "man to man" or "man on man/one-on-one".  We know this both
> from contexts of use that have nothing to do with hand-to-hand
> competition or combat ("Now I ask you, mano a mano,...") and even
> more dramatically from the evident adaptation to [+fem] contexts, as
> illustrated by these two examples out of many:
> ======
> Both shows [Prime Time Live and 20/20] had been going mano-a-mano, or
> rather womano-a-womano, competing for the same stories and
> interviews. (Surely you recall all those colorful Diane
> Sawyer-vs.-Barbara Walters tales.)  [Newsday, 1/24/01]
> ======
> By the time you read this deer season will be over. That means we
> don't have to worry about time limits at the range until season opens
> again next November.
> In October we ran a Master Gunfighter Side Match. I received a lot of
> positive feedback on it and will set up another one soon. If you have
> not ever participated in a Master Gunfighter match, you are in for a
> treat. It's the only time that shooters go head to head, mano a mano
> (or womano a womano) on a stage.
> ["Random Shots" column in Lone Star Gazette, the monthly publication
> of the Lone Star Frontier Shooting Club, Jan. 2004]
> =======
>
> So "mano a mano" is often understood as "man on man" (or hence
> something like "face to face") rather than "hand to hand".   But what
> we also increasingly find is that "mano a mano" turns into "mano y
> mano"  Thus, for example,
>
> Tiger Woods likes nothing better than the chance to do battle
> mano-y-mano down the stretch of a major championship...
>
> Hand-and-hand?  Hand-to-hand?  Man-on-man?  Hard to say.  Many are
> like the one below, with the most natural gloss being "man on/to
> man", reflecting a double reanalysis (eggcorn in eggcorn?):
>
> You haven't got the balls to tell us who you really are let alone
> meet anyone "mano y mano", just like your boss, your nothing but a
> corrupt punk.
>
> There are 4880 google hits on "mano y mano", a few from Spanish
> preserving the compositional meaning  (e.g. "entre mano y mano"), but
> mostly from English with the contexts indicating at least one
> reanalysis has taken place, if not two.
>
> And yes, we also find "womano y womano", as in computer/videogames
> intended to be played "mano y mano" or "womano y womano".  One of my
> favorite cites is the following, which helpfully provides a
> definition:
>
> http://www.navarrepress.com/archive/2002/110802/columns/run.html
> Multi-sport races were designed to be Mano y Mano - man against man -
> with no distinct advantage. Or for those who have two parts to their
> bathing suits - that might be womano y womano. I'll have to check my
> Spanish dictionary.
>
> (My advice is don't bother to check the dictionary.)
>
> Larry, wondering if any Spanish speakers on the list can confirm or
> disconfirm the possibility of an actual relevant "mano y mano" that
> might have served provided another conduit for the English versions.
>