Eggcorn: own goal >> home goal

[Damien Hall]

On Feb 13 2009, Mark Mandel wrote:

> I always found "own goal" obscure, not having grown up with sports in
> which the term is used. (NB, Damien's UK "football" is Americans'
> "soccer".) And I can't think of any other uses of the pronominal
> adjective (what DO you call it?) "own" without a possessive, whether in
> "DET[non-pronom] own N" or any other construction. AFAICT, "own goal" is
> an idiosyncratic construction.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any other such constructions
either. Of course it's easy to see where it came from: a phrase was needed
for the phenomenon of scoring against one's team, and 'home goal', though
it would be logical in the way Mark describes below, is blocked by the fact
that it already has another meaning in the sport: a goal scored at one's
team's home ground, as opposed to an 'away goal', scored when playing away
from home. The choice of 'own goal' for the phenomenon presumably then
comes from a shortening and generalisation of sentences like "S/he's scored
in his/her own goal", making an NP out of it for ease of communication?

Mark:
>OTOH, "home" meaning 'the goal that the player's team is trying to defend'
>is a pretty easy step for me, drawing on the core concept of "home". So I
>would find "home goal" not just on a par with "own goal", but preferable.

(BTW, another reason why it is useful to have a phrase for goals scored at
one's home ground as opposed to goals not scored there is that the
distinction between location of goal scored can be used to break a tie in
league tables run according to football's / soccer's world governing body's
rules. If, at the end of a season, two teams are equal on points (three for
a win, one for a draw, none for losing), on goal-difference (the difference
between goals scored and goals conceded), and on overall goals scored, then
I believe the number of home goals scored breaks the tie. Clearly, having
to use home goals to break a tie is very rare, since there are three ways
to break it before you get there, but it has happened!)

Damien

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