Eggcorn: carousel >> carousal

[Mark Mandel]

That is not an eggcorn. I'd call it a simple misspelling, possibly a
cupertino. From the "about" page of the Eggcorn Database (
http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/about/):

The criteria of how to identify eggcorns have also been clarified. Not every
> homophone substitution is an eggcorn. The crucial element is that the new
> form makes sense: for anyone except lexicographers or other people trained
> in etymology, more sense than the original form in many cases.


The OED notes the frequent confusion (or variation in spelling, to look at
it another way) but the definition --

A fit of carousing, a drinking-feast or carouse; revelry in drinking.
>

-- is IMHO not at all "obviously to do with music": revelry is a pretty thin
connection. The words are not phonologically similar at all: /k@ 'raU z at l/
vs. /,kae r@ 'sEl/. Different stress, different vowels in all three
syllables, z vs. s.

On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 6:38 AM, Damien Hall <djh514 at york.ac.uk> wrote:

> On another list this week, the following was posted:
>
> ===============
>
> I've got a number of MP3 audio files I'd like to listen to without
> having to click them on one by one.
>
> Is there any kind of a music carousal built into XP?
>
> ===============
>
...

> The poster ... ended up with a similar-sounding word that
> is more obviously to do with music, _carousal_. Checking the OED for these
> senses, I see that this confusion is, or was, frequent in writers on
> historical subjects, as shown by the citations.
>

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