More Friday Fun: Archie Bunker-style mangled expressions

["Jones, Donna" <DJones -at- zebra -dot- com>]

(For those of you not familiar with the 1970s TV show All in the Family,
Archie Bunker was known for mangling common expressions.)

 

On the radio yesterday, I heard someone talk about "siding on the error
of caution." I'm still laughing about that. Nothing like reversing words
as well as getting one of them wrong-and saying it on the radio to boot!

 

Here are some other manglings of that phrase:

-  "side IN the error of caution" got one hit on Google

-  "side on the err of caution" got three hits

-  "side on the air of caution" got three more

-  "air on the side of caution" had several hundred hits

-  "error on the side of caution" got more than 22,000 hits (That one
isn't as surprising because the noun "error" is much more commonly used
than the verb "err.")

 

I also get a kick out of people using "could of" instead of "could've."
I even heard a former tech writing coworker laugh at someone once
because she used "could have" in an e-mail instead of "could of." I
didn't have the heart to tell him who was right.  :-)

 

I found a site that lists several phrases that are typically distorted
because people are used to hearing them rather than seeing them in
print. There are some amusing ones. 

http://slacker.com/things/pullet-surprise.php

 

Anyone have any other good ones that aren't mentioned on the site? 

 

Happy Friday!

Donna
 
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