"Trolling" for "Trawling": An Eggcorn?

[James Harbeck]

>"Troll the ancient Yuletide carol"?  I've always heard it as "trill."  Can
>you cite a source for "troll" as a type of singing?

I've always read it, on every carol sheet and every sheet music
version of the song I've ever seen, as "troll"; never until this
every moment in my life have I heard or thought "trill". "Trolling"
is, in fact, what one does with carols. The song tells us so!
(lately, it's the only thing that does.)

I've also as long as I can remember known "trolling" as a kind of
fishing, which to me means dragging a single line in the water, as
opposed to trawling, which is dragging a big-ass net through the
water. But I'm not from fishing country. I've always assumed, though,
that the term "trolling" referring to what "trolls" on email lists do
was borrowed from the fishing term as a play on words -- it's a troll
who'se dragging a line to catch someone.

James Harbeck.

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