eggcorn: "raise cackles"

[Mark Mandel]

On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 3:11 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

>
> Well, I've been a lifetime "hackles" and "cockles" speaker, and I
> can't really visualize either one.  (I've always assumed that the
> cockles of my heart, whatever they are, don't much resemble the kind
> that sweet Molly Malone sells alive from her wheelbarrow, or
> wheelbarrel, as the case may be.)
>

Apparently some folks did. OED sez:

    1. The English name of bivalve molluscs of the genus Cardium, esp. C.
edule, common on sandy coasts, and much used for food. (Formerly applied
more vaguely, including other bivalves.)

...

    5. cockles of the heart: used in connexion with to rejoice, delight,
etc.; also (in modern use) to warm the cockles of one's heart.
  For derivation cf. quot. 1669. Others have sought its origin in L.
corculum dim. of cor heart. (Latham conjectured ‘the most probable
explanation lies (1) in the likeness of a heart to a cockleshell; the base
of the former being compared to the hinge of the latter; (2) in the
zoological name for the cockle being Cardium, from the Greek
{kappa}{alpha}{rho}{delta}{giacu}{alpha} = heart’.)

[*1669* R. LOWER *Tract. de Corde* 25 Fibræ quidem..spirali suo ambitu
helicem sive cochleam satis apte referunt.]

m a m

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