"coach potato" another possible eggcorn?

[Laurence Horn]

At 9:59 PM -0500 11/29/08, Herb Stahlke wrote:
>In the latest Newsweek, Sharon Begley writes in her "On Science" column:
>
>You measure the blood pressure, heart rate, weight, and other aspects
>of cardiovascular health of thousands of coach potatoes year after
>year.
>
>Googling "coach potato" gets about 39.7k hits.  When you refine the
>search to eliminate the cartoon series, the bus tour company,
>communications technologies, and other false matches, the number drops
>to about 14.6k, many of which clearly mean "couch potato."  "Coach
>potato' has an Urban Dictionary definition, "coach potato is used to
>describe someone who sits on the coach all day and does nothing
>(common knowledge)."  WikiAnswers has a question on the source of
>"coach potato" but no comments have been submitted.
>
>Herb
>
This is my story, and I'm sticking to it:

http://www.potatomuseum.com/exCouch.html

Or at least the prominent role of Robert Armstrong--musician, T-shirt
silk screener, and R. Crumb-school cartoonist--who I used to know in
California and who always insisted it was based on the pun on
"toober" illustrated in the story, and the role of the Doo-dah Parade
(the un-Rose Parade in Pasadena).

LH

P.S.  Now that I look at that web site, I see there are actually a
whole bunch of different theories.  I'm sure at most one of them, or
perhaps at least one of them, is correct.

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