Another Eggcorn? (was Post-opt for Post-op)

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On 11/10/09 4:31 AM, "Margaret Lee" <mlee303 at YAHOO.COM> wrote:
>
> One of my students wrote, "The author does not sugar code his story."
>  --the use of 'sugar code' for 'sugar coat.' It is not is the eggcorn
>database. Is this an eggcorn?

The closest the ECDB has is "color-coded" -> "color-coated":

http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/english/544/color-coated/

But "sugar-code(d)" would fit in with other /t/-flapping eggcorns
we've recorded, like "short-sided" and "deep-seeded". I'd expect
"sugar-coded" to emerge first, with the intervocalic flap, and then
"sugar-code" to develop as a back-formation from that.


--Ben Zimmer

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