eggcorn-orthodentist

[Lynne Murphy]

Didn't find "orthodentist" in the eggcorn database, but a colleague just
passed it on in in a list of favorite speech errors/reanalyses he'd
collected.  600+ hits on google.  The second one I get is from Free
Dictionary which says "orthodontics--redirected from orthodentist"--so
apparently it's a common (mis)spelling.  There's also orthodentist.co.uk,
which at first I thought was using 'orthodentist' for some kind of
alternative dentist, but it's just a sort of yellow pages for dentists, so
I don't think so.

A lot of these are second-language English writers/speakers--advertising to
dental tourists who they're trying to lure to Eastern Europe/Asia for a
holiday with cheap dental work.  But some, like this one
<http://www.filmjunk.com/2006/02/15/thumbsucker/>
seem to be native speakers.

Lynne



Dr M Lynne Murphy
Senior Lecturer and Head of Department
Linguistics and English Language
Arts B133
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QN

phone: +44-(0)1273-678844
http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com

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