eggcorn

[Laurence Horn]

On Mar 26, 2012, at 4:11 PM, Victor Steinbok wrote:

> "Hampen", possibly for a blend of "hamper" and "dampen". Seen in the
> wild (in IRC):
>
>> It's probably a good thing for me because admittedly it seriously
>> hampens my ability to get my work done during the day
>
> While it is theoretically possible to mess up n and r, most of the time
> it's a straight word substitution (I just typed "even" for "ever" about
> an hour ago, but caught it). The two letters are not neighbours in QWERTY.
>
An intriguing googled quote:

"It's the only thing that has hampened my enthusiasm for marriage and farming. How can I get them to stop?"

--letter to the advice columnist (Molly Mayfield) of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from "Tearful" in June 1963, and if you're wondering, the "it" in question is the random but frequent teasing comment she has to put up with from the "them" in question because she's a city girl who moved to a farm to be with her new husband.  Mrs. Mayfield tells her she needs to buck up, that teasing is a form of affection, a way of making her part of their group, etc., but whether Tearful's enthusiasm for marriage and farming ever became unhampened is not clear.

LH

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