"Slights of hand"

[Arnold Zwicky]

On May 7, 2009, at 9:56 PM, Randy Alexander wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Randy Alexander <strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "Slights of hand"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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.

"slight of hand" is in the eggcorn database (with references to other
discussions):
   http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/english/117/slight/

>> 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".

looks like: once you've got "slight of hand", it's open for
reinterpretation as a count expression meaning 'magic trick'.

> 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

what's up with the two marked lines?

arnold

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