"call it quits" as phrasal eggcorn?

[Laurence Horn]

The earlier established meaning is based on _quits_ 'Even or equal with, esp. by means of repayment or retaliation', and we still have _to be quits_ as in "pay me back and we're quits".  At QUITS 2a, the OED has for "call (it) quits" or "cry quits" , which I guess is the U.K./older version, "to declare oneself equal or even with another" but at 2b "(also) to abandon a quarrel, venture, etc., esp. in order to cut one's losses", for which the first cite is 1963.  I'm thinking that this is basically an innovative meaning based on the normal meaning of the verb _quit_.

Today's New Haven Register headline is "CAFERO CALLS IT QUITS", which refers to the minority leader of the CT House of Representatives not running for re-election, i.e. quitting his position.  There's no party with whom he's calling it all square; "call it quits" here is used more in the 'abandon a venture' sense or, more simply, 'quit' in the ordinary sense of the verb.

If this is right, "call (it) quits" appears to be, or at least to have begun as, a kind of phrasal eggcorn (motivated reanalysis), along the lines of "beg the question" (in the sense of 'raise the question') and "Wherefore art thou (Romeo)" in the sense of 'where are you?'

Is there a discussion of this shift somewhere?

LH

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