Cats, horses, eggcorns

[Chris F. Waigl]

On Wed, 2006-03-15 at 10:38 -0800, Mark Peters wrote:

> I just read a student paper with a very sweet eggcorn: "put the cat before the horse."
>
>   I found a few deliberate plays on the expression out there, but these seem sincere:
>
>   Former Athletic Federation of Nigeria technical head, M. A. K Ogun has indicted top officials of Premier League side, Gateway FC, of ruining the team with very poor recruitment exercise, saying what they did was putting the cat before the horse. He took exception to the action of officials who recruited players first before engaging an appropriate coach to come on-board, saying the practice has been the bane of Nigerian teams.
>   http://www.vanguardngr.com/articles/2002/sports/june05/18062005/sp418062005.html
>
>   What is lacking, quite clearly is the spice of public action. But perhaps to expect that the Attorney-General's Office and the Government in general can eradicate corruption is to put the cat before the horse.
>   http://www.nationaudio.com/News/DailyNation/1998/130998/Comment/News_Analysis2.html
>
>   Let us not put the cat before the horse.I want to know this time round we will not be used and explioted by anyone. You see we tend to gain from this but only if our government make proper contract arrangement with these companies.
>   http://forum.visitsierraleone.org/forum_posts.asp?TID=149&PN=1&get=last
>
>   The logic here is pretty sweet: putting the cat before the horse is definitely not recommended by vets...

http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/english/689/cat/ Thank you.

Strangely, it's most frequent in texts from African writers. I wonder if
the rationale is the one you suggest, or something like valuing the cat
more than the horse.

Chris Waigl

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