?Eggcorn?

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Fri Jul 22 20:59:10 UTC 2005


>Author's note:
>
>If you use this bookmark-importing tool,
>
>"Old bookmarks will not be _overridden_."
>
>My first thought was that this should be ",,, overwritten." But then, I
>thought. "Well, if a bookmark is looked at as a kind of command to the
>computer, then, perhaps, 'override' is the verb to use."
>
>-Wilson Gray

Interesting.  For me, "written" and "ridden" are quite distinct
phonologically, although of course "writer" and "rider" are the same
(modulo a bit of vowel lengthening for the latter--or is it the
ladder?--in some registers).   This makes it seem more likely to me
(although not certain) that "overridden" was intended here.

L



More information about the Ads-l mailing list