sleuth = slew

[Benjamin Zimmer]

I came across this eggcornish substitution recently:

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http://ethnicloft.com/blog/2006/02/04/north-american-slave-narratives/
The University Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill has a sleuth of digitalized literature that documents the
American southern history and culture.
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I'm hesitant to put this in the Eggcorn Database, since I don't see
any possible semantic rationalization for using "sleuth". So is it a
plain old malaprop?

This is a pretty common substitution, as it turns out. Here are some
other recent examples from a blog search:

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http://ogadget.com/should-buy-intelmac-imac-or-not-8.html
So it seems that iMac is one the most stylish and efficient desktop in
the world with a sleuth of innovative features like 2.0 GHz. Intel
Core Duo processor, a gig of RAM and cool iSight camera all in a small
form factor.
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http://dibleydoo.blogspot.com/2006/01/i-fear-most-negligible-things.html
The magical way music brings forth a sleuth of emotions, and feelings.
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http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=1694043&blogID=1893461
I took a sleuth of tests on Emode out of boredom during the holidays.
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http://kiwisandmangos.blogspot.com/2006/01/something-sad.html
all i do is work and go to shows (i have a sleuth of concerts lined
up, my only happiness).
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http://www.unixtutorials.info/go.php?id=448
After the first round of benchmarks, I received a sleuth of e-mails
asking for the raw numbers.
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http://senorcarnival.livejournal.com/79232.html
There was a whole sleuth of classes that I could take as well.
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(There are also scattered references to "sleuth" as a collective name
for a group of bears, which looks like a variant of "sloth (of
bears)". I doubt that this sense has much of an influence on the
"slew"/"sleuth" substitution, however.)


--Ben Zimmer

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