pawn off

[Jesse Sheidlower]

On Fri, Jun 22, 2007 at 04:53:24PM -0700, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
> a friend just wrote with an "eggcorn sighting":
>
> My June 25 New Yorker came today ... on p. 96 we have
>
> "Audiences, too, may have recoiled when they watched
> the first episode [of 'John from Cincinnati'], and thought,
> Hey, don't try to =pawn this off= on me."
>
> -----
>
> the OED (Dec. 2005 draft revision)  has this from 1763 on (up through
> 2003), mostly from elevated sources.  it says "= PALM v. 2. Usu. with
> off, upon", which  might be a suggestion that it started as an error
> for PALM.  but the PALM subentry has its first cite from 1830.
>
> it's probably just that the PALM entry hasn't been revised yet.

No, the _palm_ entry was revised before _pawn_, in fact
(published in March 2005). It's probably just that our
expectations have changed, because now _palm off_ is the more
usual expression so we expect that it must therefore be the
earlier. The use of "=" with cross-references in the OED isn't
intended to show that the referring form is in error, just
that the cross-reference target might be the usual or more
well-known form.

Jesse Sheidlower
OED

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