Eggcorn: *mooted* > *muted*

[Damien Hall]

Spotted today in an MSN Sky Sports story about a confirmed English bid to host
the 2018 football World Cup Finals:

'A bid for the 2018 finals has been muted for some time'
near the beginning of the story 'FA confirm World Cup bid' at
http://msnsport.skysports.com/story/0,19528,12040_2839166,00.html

In this re-spelling of the less common *mooted*, the meaning 'suggested
discreetly, in the inner circles' has been preserved and transferred to the
commoner *muted*, which could also have connotations of discreetness through
silence.  The transfer is helped by the near-homophony of the two words (in
this case, there probably isn't absolute homophony, since the website is a
British one, and few British accents omit the glide in *mute*;  those that do
are spoken by minorities of the population).

Damien Hall
University of Pennsylvania

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