Eggcorn: own goal >> home goal

[Victor]

As much as I would like to think of "own goal" as a pure Britishism,
that might not be the case. Avoiding the brute force approach, I thought
I'd try "puck own-goal" for search string (no quotes). Admittedly,
hockey "own goals" are far less common and usually occur on an errant
pass when a team pulls the goalie for an attacker. But they exist and I
found some examples that not only demonstrate the use, but also might
shed some light on its (possibly independent) origin. An odd caveat--in
hockey, the goal is credited to the last player to have touched the puck
on the other team, not the guy who puts it in his own net.

There is a Wiki entry for "Own Goal"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Own_goal

The article is rather poorly written, as "own goal" is extended to
sports that don't use "goal" to describe a score.

But, as far as hockey is concerned, there is some stuff available.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0vbjUDYWhE&feature=related
_The Worst Own Goal_ EVER

http://www.robotchallenge.at/en/reglement/puck-collect/
If a robot carries a foreign puck to his own home base and leaves it
there, the referee puts this puck into the opposing home base ("own goal").

I've noticed some minor orthographic variations: own-goal and "own
goal", which suggest that the speaker (writer) was not comfortable with
the expression.

A large number of recent hits refer to a particular goal scored by Ryan
O'Byrne in a game against NY Islanders. I included several different
statements about O'Byrne's goal, including a couple of YouTube posts.
There are three different uses: "a[n] own goal", "O'Byrne's own goal"
and "on/in his own goal". These suggest that a possible evolutionary
path might have contracted "on his own goal" to just an "own goal".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9JtNIwyWOw&feature=related
Ryan O'byrne _Own Goal_ against Islanders
Hilarious! Ryan Obyrne _scores a own goal_ against the habs to tie the
game at 3 with under 4 minutes to play in the third, NYI ended up
winning the game in a shootout.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gd6LdFnFKqY
Ryan O'Byrne Scores _On His Own Goal_

http://deadspin.com/5098612/shooting-the-puck-in-your-own-goal--thats-bad-right
Shooting The Puck _In Your Own Goal_

... incidentally passed the puck to his own goalie, who had long since
retired to the bench
    VS-)

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.
>
> 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.
>
> Mark Mandel

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