Eggcorn: *light sabre* > 'light saver'

[Laurence Horn]

At 1:31 PM -0500 12/22/07, Damien Hall wrote:
>When I was at school I used to think that the swords of light in the
>*Star Wars*
>films, light sabres, were actually called 'light savers'.  Google tells me I'm
>not alone:  this afternoon a search on
>
>"light saver" "star wars"
>
>yields 1,410 ghits.  It strikes me now that this qualifies as an eggcorn:
>there's the phonetic element in the similarity of the realisations, and the
>semantic one in that (presumably, for a child) the weapon 'saves' light an
>emits it as a beam when someone needs striking down.
>
Indeed.  I can imagine "saver-tooth tiger" as well, although not
quite so many hits yet (especially when puns are discounted).  Or
even "save-a-tooth tiger".  No hits at all on that, but I'm willing
to be patient.

LH

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