"tampering off": online blend for your possible collections

[Laurence Horn]

Mike Francesa, WFAN radio, a few minutes ago, speculating whether the
Yankees' game at the new Stadium would be played or rained out
tonight:

"The forecast is for steady rain through the day, then tampering off..."

Crucially, the Yankees' series beginning tonight is against the Tampa
Bay Rays (although that fact hadn't been mentioned for awhile when
the sentence was uttered, nor was Tampa mentioned afterward), so this
constitutes a clear instance of "tapering" + "Tampa", one Francesa
didn't even notice or in any case didn't correct after uttering it.
I had assumed that the homonymy with "tamper" is accidental, but I
suppose it may have helped facilitated the blend, and indeed there
are a few hundred google hits for "tampering off".  I suppose to be
on the safe side we'd have to monitor Francesa's descriptions of
clearing weather in connection with series against Boston, Baltimore,
or Toronto.

LH

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org