"close line"

[Arnold Zwicky]

On Jan 31, 2009, at 10:15 AM, Herb Stahlke wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Antedating "and them"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> So is "close line" eye dialect or an eggcorn?
>
> Herb
>
> On Sat, Jan 31, 2009 at 1:11 PM, Jonathan Lighter
> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Though widely familiar to others here, it still sounds weird to me.
>> I never
>> heard it in NYC.
>>
>> 1918 Ring Lardner _Treat 'Em Rough_ (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill)
>> 13: I
>> guess if Van Hindburg and them could of seen us you wouldn't of
>> needed a
>> close line no more to take their chest measure.
>>
>> The "writer" is a baseball pitcher from the rural Midwest.

surely just spelling by ear.  the spelling "close" for "clothes" is
common enough to be in Brians, and you can google up relevant
examples of "close washer" and "close dryer" as well as "close line",
plus some things like "put on your close".  i can't see any connection
to closing in these examples.

arnold

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