Eggcorn

[Arnold Zwicky]

On Jul 3, 2009, at 7:47 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:

> From a discussion of homeless children being allowed to wander:about
> in abandoned buildings:
>
> "... the only building in the city that allows _free rein_ to
> homeless kids ..."
>
>
> I'm *really* uncertain about this one. It seems to me that this
> sorta-kinda-maybe calls for "... allows free _range_," since the kids
> are *wandering about* within the building, but, WTF, I wouldn't bet
> money on it.

"free rein" is the original idiom, but (as Chris Waigl said on the
ecdb):

   As horses and carriages have become rare as a means of transport,
the metaphor controling or restricting their movement with the help of
reins has lost its transparency.
   http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/english/34/reign/

so "rein" has been replaced by items that make more sense to people,
in particular "reign" and "range", the latter also in the ecdb:

   http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/english/362/range/

searching the ecdm for "rein" will get you both of these entries.

arnold

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