write-off > right-off
James Harbeck
jharbeck at SYMPATICO.CA
Thu Jan 29 03:33:22 UTC 2009
As long as we're talking about eggcorns here, I'll toss in one I
don't remember seeing before yesterday, when I spotted it in an
article in the London Telegraph,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/4360411/Good-samaritan-has-roof-cut-off-car-after-giving-refuge-to-injured-driver.html
:
"When Mr Carter's car was declared a right-off he expected the
injured driver's insurance company to pay out."
Evidently this one is already quite common, as "was a right-off" gets
about 11,600 Google hits, and at least the first page is all
instances of this usage.
James Harbeck.
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