eggcorn: "raise cackles"

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 3:00 PM, Alison Murie <sagehen7470 at att.net> wrote:
>
> On Jun 4, 2009, at 1:58 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>>
>> At 1:40 PM -0400 6/4/09, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>>>
>>> Ah, that would help explain this example:
>>>
>>>>> ---
>>>>> http://www.quickstopentertainment.com/2005/01/28/trailer-park-happy-birthday-to-me/
>>>>> It's about Deep Throat so you can be sure it's, at the very least,
>>>>> going to raise some cackles in the hearts of bible belters
>>>>> somewhere in this great land.
>>>>> ---
>>
>> I saw that one, but concluded it was more likely to be a "hackle"
>> cackle like yours than a "cockle" cackle like mine, especially with
>> "raise" rather than "warm" as the verb.  But I suppose it depends on
>> what your presuppositions are concerning the attitude of Blble
>> Belters toward "Deep Throat"....
>>
>>> So that's both an idiom blend and a lexical blend ("hackles" +
>>> "cockles" = "cackles").
>
> I wonder what "cackles"-speakers imagine cackles to look like!

Well, what do people imagine "hackles" and "cockles" to look like?


--Ben Zimmer

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