"confuses X for Y"

[Laurence Horn]

This is another monkey wrench to throw into both the current debate
on online blends vs. pattern extension as language change and the
earlier threads on "substitute" and "replace".  From the cover story
of today's New York Times Book Review ("Family Blessings", on Mary
Gordon's memoir, by Darcey Steinke):

[referring to one of Gordon's aunts]
Lilian is the only good aunt; known as a "featherhead," a beautician
who dyes her hair and uses chrome cocktail shakers and cigarette
holders. When Kennedy is assassinated she confuses him for Jack
Lemmon. "I was wondering whey everyone was so upset," she says.
[NYTBR p. 10]

I don't recall ever seeing "confuses X for Y" (as opposed to
"confuses X with Y" or "takes X for Y"), but on closer examination it
seems too well-established to constitute what Arnold refers to as a
type-2 combo or blend proper.  There are (supposedly) 2540 hits for
"confuses it for" alone, most of which appear to be of the relevant
form*, and who knows how many when "it" is replaced with (or should I
say "for"?) an actual full NP or when we vary the tense.

I'm still surprised a non-standard usage of this kind (assuming it
really *is* non-standard), well attested though it may be, survived
the scrutiny of the Times copy-editors, but then the clause following
the semicolon in the previous sentence isn't a clause, so maybe said
copy-editors are on strike.

Or maybe I've just led a sheltered life.  I see that "confused it
with" only defeats "confused it for" by 51.7K to 20.8K, so the latter
is evidently much more robust than I'd ever have guessed.

LH


e.g.
If the hat is black, the Simpsonizer probably confuses it for your hair.

Holy Mother Church has divined the "ends," the "final be-cause," from
Aristotle's physis, and confuses it for Aristotle's instrumental
reasoning...

the chocolate is mixed by waterfall (though it is less appealing
after one of the parents confuses it for raw sewage)

The Japanese girl believes that what it is that she wants is sex,
confuses it for love...

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org