Eggcorn

[Laurence Horn]

At 4:46 AM -0700 7/4/09, Arnold Zwicky wrote:
>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so "rein" has been replaced by items that make more sense to people,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
>
And in the other direction, there's "free rein chicken", which
conjures a lovely image of unbridled poultry galloping along on
saddleback.

LH

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