Eggcorn: "cudboard"

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:48 AM -0700 8/11/09, Arnold Zwicky wrote:
>On Aug 11, 2009, at 8:30 AM, Doug Harris wrote:
>
>>Google reports 3000+ hits, but many of those are not cudboard
>>but CUD Board, sometimes referring to the Canadian University
>>of Dubai (of all things!).
>
>i don't get anywhere near that number of hits, but there certainly are
>some out there.
>
>but there a great many more hits for the ear-spelling "cuboard", and a
>fair number for the ear-spelling "cubboard".

also a bunch for "cubbard" and for "cubberd", spellings I've used in
class when talking about loss of transparency with respect to this
word (vs. "clipboard")

LH

>
>i'm having trouble seeing "cudboard" as an actual eggcorn (what could
>cuds have to do with cupboards?).  maybe it's a demi-eggcorn: the
>writer realized that a consonant letter was needed to condition the
>lax vowel in the first syllable, and then cast about for existing one-
>syllable words with that vowel; "cub" would be the obvious choice, but
>"cud" is also possible (and [db] can be simplified to [b]).  the
>choice of "cub" or "cud" doesn't contribute any semantics, but at
>least the spelling has recognizable parts.
>
>arnold
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org