"coach potato" another possible eggcorn?

[Herb Stahlke]

Good source for "couch potato," but where does "coach potato" come
from, besides the obvious tour bus junkie?

Herb

On Sat, Nov 29, 2008 at 10:37 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "coach potato" another possible eggcorn?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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.
>
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