A presidential eggcorn

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Tue, 13 Sep 2005 00:40:21 -0400, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:

>>From the President's Monday press briefing...
>
>-----
>http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/09/20050912.html
>And I, myself, thought we had dodged a bullet. You know why? Because I
>was listening to people, probably over the airways, say, the bullet has
>been dodged.
>-----
>
>I see that the New York Times and other news outlets have corrected the
>transcript to read "airwaves", but I heard the briefing and am pretty
>sure he said "airways" as the official transcript indicates. This will
>probably enter the canon of Bushisms alongside "the Internets", but it's
>a pretty common eggcorn. More examples here:
>
>http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/english/586/way/

Hmm, is it even an eggcorn?

OED2:
A radio channel (cf. AIR n.1 1c). U.S.
1934 in M. WESEEN Dict. Amer. Slang xii. 165. 1946 Baltimore Sun 10 Oct.
18/8 By that time a radio broadcaster had appeared with a portable
microphone but Ted had nothing for the airways, even after most of the
other players had taken their turns at the ‘mike’.

MWCD:
4 : a channel of a designated radio frequency for broadcasting or other
radio communication

RHUD:
5.  airways,
a. the band of frequencies, taken collectively, used by radio broadcasting
stations: The news was sent out over the airways immediately.
b. airwaves.

I'll mark this questionable on the database pending further discussion.


--Ben Zimmer