eggcorn candidate: "center meters"

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Thu Dec 17 01:51:06 UTC 2009


As in this exchange on WikiAnswers:

Q: How many center meters is 3 foot?
A:  1 foot = 30.48cm
       30.48 X 3 = 91.44cm

Other questions from the first page of the about 11,500 g-hits for
"center meters":

How Many Center Meters R There In An Inch?
How Big is the Equator in Center Meters?


Another 52,500 hits for the singular "center meter", as in
"center meter to inch" conversion tables, "How many millimeters equal
one center meter", and so on.

True, many of these hits are irrelevant ("Government Center Meters",
"Bryan Center Meter Lot",...), but many seem to be clear instances of
eggcornish reanalyses, facilitated by the fact that centimeters are
more likely to be used in the largely non-rhotic U.K., where
"centimeter" and "center meter" are pretty much homophones.

LH

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



More information about the Ads-l mailing list