two queries: bobwire, know the score

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

thanks to having written on reanalytic malapropisms (a.k.a. eggcorns)
on Language Log, i collect rather a lot of e-mail about particular
examples.  most recently, "bobwire" and "know the score".

"bobwire" is an old familiar to me.  i assume "barbed wire" > "barb
wire", by the usual t/d participle deletion, and then "barb" > "bob"
via a non-rhotic variety.  but i was surprised not to see it in DARE.
did i somehow miss it, or is it just too widespread to count as
regional?

on "know the score", my correspondent noted that he'd seen it in
contexts suggesting a sports origin and in contexts suggesting a
musical origin (salman rushdie wrote a Guardian column in 1987 entitled
"Songs Don't Know the Score").  so presumably one usage was the
original and the other a reinterpretation (a "hidden eggcorn").  my
correspondent favored the musical story, i'd always assumed it was a
sports-based metaphor.  checks in some obvious places turned up nothing
-- so i wonder if there's some reasonably authoritative discussion of
the history.

arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)