earlobe > earlope

[Laurence Horn]

At 4:21 PM -0400 8/2/09, James Harbeck wrote:
>In a local beauty magazine I happened to pick up from a seat in the
>subway today, I saw an article on earlobes that had "EARLOPE" in the
>article title and all headings but "earlobe" in the text -- evidently
>whoever handled the headings etc. in the editing or layout process
>thought the word was earlobe but also didn't notice or didn't change
>the usage in the article, and evidently the magazine doesn't have
>copyeditors and proofreaders to catch little things like that.
>
>I didn't recall seeing "earlope" before. But it gets more than 11,000
>hits on Google. I'm not inclined to think of this as an eggcorn, as
>there's nothing about the appendage that's more loping than
>lobe-like. I wonder if the voiceless version is felt to be more
>common, more proper, or what.
>
Perceived relation to, or influence from, "elope"?

LH

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