Eggcorn: *mooted* > *muted*

[Joel S. Berson]

Hardly muted, if were talking about British football and its fans.

Joel

At 10/31/2007 02:15 PM, you wrote:
>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
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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