"Unchartered waters"

[Laurence Horn]

At 1:58 AM +0000 11/25/07, Chris F Waigl wrote:
>Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>>On Nov 24, 2007 8:20 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>>
>>>Hardly a new one, but just uttered to the nation by an announcer for
>>>the big Kansas-Missouri football game just a moment ago.  We're told
>>>that both teams are in them.
>>>
>>
>>More here:
>>
>>http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/english/173/unchartered/
>>
>
>I hear "unchartered territory" a lot on the news. Though I wonder if it
>could sometimes be an intrusive [r], which is very common in the English
>media ("lore and order" ...).
>
I think of those as two different phenomena; intrusive /r/ in "lawr
and order" or "idear of" is intervocalic, but that wouldn't apply in
"unchart(er)ed waters".  I think it's just a lexical confusion (not
that there's anything wrong with that...).

LH

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