[Ads-l] "stepped foot on" (that flight)

[Cohen, Gerald Leonard]

We deal here with two factors, i.e., multiple causation:
1) blending (set foot on + stepped on)
2) phonetic similarity (stepped, set).

Gerald Cohen
________________________________________
From:Ben Zimmer [bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM], Friday, August 21, 2015 9:22 AM:

And the OED has examples back to 1864, as mentioned in the Eggcorn
Database entry.

http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/english/101/step-foot/

On Fri, Aug 21, 2015 at 9:19 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
> I'm certain that my students occasionally wrote or said this (i.e., I met
> with it two or three times, maybe more) twenty-five years ago or
> thereabouts.
>
> On Thu, Aug 20, 2015 at 11:42 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>>
>> =46rom a 2013 book I was just listening to tonight on my way home from =
>> the airport:
>>
>> Eventually, his firm had outgrown the space he was in and he'd bought an =
>> office building on lower State Street into which he'd moved some two =
>> years before. I realized with embarrassment that I'd never even stepped =
>> foot in the place.
>>
>> --Sue Grafton, _W is for Wasted_, Chapter 11
>>
>> > On Oct 16, 2014, at 9:54 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at ATT.NET> wrote:
>> >=20
>> > According to many (about 418) Google News sources, "CDC Director Dr. =
>> Tom Frieden said she [2nd Texas hospital nurse] never should have =
>> stepped foot on the flight, but another federal official told CNN that =
>> no one at the agency stopped her."
>> >=20
>> > I would say "set foot on", but many Google Web sites disagree.
>> >=20
>> > My attempt to count produces incomprehensible results -- searching for =
>> "step foot on" (quoted) gives me pages that contain instead only "set =
>> foot on".  Irregardless:
>> >=20
>> > "set foot on" -- 28,400,000 Google Web hits.
>>
>> I get "about 791,000 results" when I try it today, but as noted =
>> elsewhere these numbers are essentially meaningless.  It *is* possible =
>> to do an actual count (ignoring duplicates and other minor matters) by =
>> going through the hits by advancing through the figures corresponding to =
>> the pages at the bottom of each page.  Doing so in this case yields the =
>> figure of 330 hits for "set foot on" (which of course includes some =
>> present as well as past tense occurrences) and 405 for "stepped foot =
>> on".  I find this quite surprising myself, since I couldn't remember =
>> coming across the latter before it was mentioned in this thread.  I =
>> suspect, though, that I wouldn't have noticed the occurrence in the =
>> Grafton novel if we hadn't just been discussing it; I would have just =
>> heard it as "set foot on" with "step" folded in. =20
>>
>> LH
>>
>> > "stepped foot on" -- merely 2,740,000 Google Web hits.
>> >=20
>> > Joel=20

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