space case (1976), waste case (1986)

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Oct 5, 2005, at 11:12 PM, Ben Zimmer wrote:

> On Wed, 5 Oct 2005 15:21:10 -0500, Mullins, Bill wrote:
>
>> ... This reminds me of the quote from "Ferris Bueller's Day
>> Off" (1986)
>>
>> Grace [Edie McClurg]: "Oh, he's very popular Ed. The sportos,
>> motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, waistoids, dweebies, dickheads -
>> they
>> all adore him. They think he's a righteous dude."
>
> (Hmm, eggcorn? Does a "waistoid" waste away from the waist?)

lots of "waistoid" hits, but most seem to involve a waist bag for cd
players.  there are, however, some clear "waistoid" 'loser' hits,
like these:

Waistoid Mecca: Welcome Home Fellow Loser. Congratulations, you
actually have
nothing better to do in your free time than surf on into here. ...
www.angelfire.com/nj/xkremint/

Well, this kid gives me a case of the shits. When did acting like a
dumbass
waistoid become "cute?" It ain't cute. It's annoying. ...
www.gibe.com/forum/messages.asp?pref=&topicid=6105&forumid=11

i do have trouble seeing these as eggcorns, though.  they look like
ordinary misspellings, or perhaps spellings jiggled so as to make it
clear that the vowel is /ej/, not the /&/ that "wastoid" might have
suggested.

the opposite misspelling, especially in "wasteband" for
"waistband" (which Bryan Garner notes in his usage dictionaries), is
also moderately common, and, since it seems to have some semantic
motivation, it's been entered in the eggcorn database:

   http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/english/85/waste/

i've added a comment there about "waistoid".

arnold