eggcorn "cudboard"

[Alison Murie]

THe original of the following, sent earlier today, seems to have got
lost in cyberspace:

On Aug 11, 2009, at 2:30 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Eggcorn: "cudboard"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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
>>
~~~~~~
Then there is "clapboard," which some people pronounce as spelled, but
most of us old farts, at least, pronounce "clabb at rd."
AM

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