eggcorns: scrupleless and moribound

[Laurence Horn]

At 7:26 PM -0500 9/18/06, Gordon, Matthew J. wrote:
>scrupleless for scrupulous
>
>Scrupleless is in OED though it's listed there as rare with only one
>1823 citation. It seems like it should be a more common reanalysis,
>of course with the opposite meaning of scrupulous. Some examples:
>
>"Consider yourself lucky, that I don't care enough to try and find
>each and everyone of you scrupleless scumbags."
>http://www.halomods.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=11364&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=20&sid=de01ca1dfb27a6fbaf4cdc14043d5c0a
>
>"Scrupleless businesses are more than willing to profit from this market"
>http://www.jbs.org/node/876
>
>Still, you might be thinking these come from a straightforward
>suffixing of '-less' to 'scruple' rather than a reinterpretation of
>'-lous.' The following examples of "unscrupleless" are better
>evidence that some eggcorning's going on here. NB: the meaning is
>clearly not "scrupleful".
>
>"I say the quanity of unscrupleless amulance chasers makes them a
>plentiful bunch in Hell."
>http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?p=1379677
>
>"Flooded with stories of financial ruin and unscrupleless dealings
>on the news, it is very easy to become wary of the financial system."
>http://bobbybran.blogs.com/bobbys_world/2005/10/selfperpetuatin.html
>
>"I guarantee my pups and wondered if someone unscrupleless could
>switch a pup to get their money back?"
>http://www.prodoggroomingsupplies.com/dog-forums/showthread.php?t=14161
>

Interesting reanalysis, involving an apparent assimilation of
"unscrupulous" to the class of redundant NEG-X-less adjectives
exemplified now by "irregardless" (or Ger. unzweifellos lit.
'undoubtless', but really 'doubtless'), but which used to include
"unboundless", "unfathomless", "unhelpless", "unmatchless",
"unmerciless", "unnumberless", "unremorseless", "unshameless", etc.,
all with the meaning 'Xless', that were all the rage in the 16th and
17th century.

LH

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