Eggcorn

[Wilson Gray]

On Dec 27, 2004, at 8:46 PM, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Eggcorn
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> On Dec 27, 2004, at 11:48 AM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>
>> Heard on today's The People's Court, spoken by Judge Marilyn Millan:
>>
>> How, _on God's green acre_, do you explain this?
>>
>> For the younger members: back in the day, there was a popular novel
>> and
>> a movie with the title, "God's Little Acre,"
>
> or, as larry horn and dennis preston point out, the tv show "Green
> Acres".
>
>>  which the good judge
>> appears to have crossed with the common expression, "on God's green
>> earth."
>
> ...which makes it, not an eggcorn strictly speaking, but an instance of
> its cousin the idiom blend -- on which, see recent Language Log pieces
> by geoff nunberg, mark liberman, and me:
>
> http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001725.html
>
> http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001737.html
>
> http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001745.html
>
> arnold
>

You are correct, sir, needless to say.

-Wilson