"djinn up"

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

over on soc.motss yesterday a poster wrote:

   Can you djinn up a good Irish brogue?

and another poster queried the "djinn", saying:

   I thought it was "gin up".  Google seems to agree with me.
Nonetheless, send in the linguists!

to which the original poster replied, dismissively (indicating that
he wrote what he intended to write):

   No, dumbo.

despite this poster's self-assurance, this looks like a wonderful
eggcorn.  "gin up" is in several dictionaries, and in senses
compatible with what the poster typed[1], but "djinn up" isn't in
any, so far as i can tell. there are a few relevant google webhits
for "djinn up", but about 200 *times* as many relevant ones for "gin
up".

"gin up" would seem to make no sense (the "gin" probably is a
shortening of
"ginger", but who knows that now?), while "djinn up" evokes a djinni
who can create or fetch things.

some cites for "gin up":

Time to gin up your own economy and let go of namby pamby socialist
pie in the...
www.americana-uk.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2093&

To gin up a federal claim, the Schindlers were forced to make
insubstantial arguments attacking the fairness of the...
cnnstudentnews.cnn.com/2005/LAW/03/31/lazarus.schiavo/

Those journalists just gin up a story people can grab onto so they
think they're a...
www.jackasterisk.com/j_a_c_k_/ 2004/11/tinkerbell_econ.html

face down potential international rivals, and to gin up creative
energies.
www.theamericanscene.com/2005/ 05/deidre-east-is-dead-wrongtax-
breaks.php

and some cites for "djinn up":

... based on lies that he and his cabinet has decided to djinn up
years before.
driftglass.blogspot.com/ 2005_07_01_driftglass_archive.html

... and scientists were bitch-slapped around and told to djinn-up
“facts” that supported the...
driftglass.blogspot.com/ 2005_06_01_driftglass_archive.html

The military can't meet its recruiting requirements nor the country
djinn up
enthusiasm for its adventures.
effectmeasure.blogspot.com/2005/06/no-soldier-left-behind.html

After decades of trying, only recently have a few modelers managed to
djinn up
models with the right concoction of atmospheric parameters to produce
a ...
www.co2andclimate.org/climate/ previous_issues/vol6/v6n21/hot1.htm

The numbers encode information about the membership. We'll probably
also want to djinn up a roster of membership, perhaps to post on the
web site. ...
www.charlestonbattery.com/Regiment/ Reg2000/Business/
Minutes_2000-02-21.html

[1] DARE has "gin up" 'stir up, get something going', and OED2 has
something similar, marked as U.S. slang.  the Online Etymological
Dictionary has a somewhat extended sense 'enliven, make more
exciting', and a "dictionary of bureaucratese" entitled STATESPEAK
has a sense extended in a somewhat different direction, 'create,
develop'.  (intransitive "gin up" 'drink gin, become intoxicated',
also in the OED, is irrelevant here.)

arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu), waiting to see what the original
poster has to say about all of this