"Slights of hand"

[Randy Alexander]

On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 9:24 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> In this week's on-line report from an investment advisory newsletter
> I subscribe to:
>
> Magic Tricks
> Slights of hand, misdirection, pulling sound bites out of hats ...
>
> I always thought it was "sleight". Â But the OED has 15 quotations
> with "slight" (37 with "sleight"). Â Most (I guess 10) are from the
> pre-standardized-spelling early 18th century -- but the most-recent
> is 1857--1892.

I'm more surprised that it's plural.  I always took "sleight of hand"
to be non-count.  But google gives 30k raw hits for "slights of hand".

COCA gives:
177 sleight of hand
10 slights of hand
1 slight of hands
9 slight of hand
1 slights of hand
0 slight of hands

--
Randy Alexander
Jilin City, China
My Manchu studies blog:
http://www.bjshengr.com/manchu

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