If elevator falls, don't jump to conclusions

As for gold reserves, the United States has the world's biggest hoard. But if ornamentation is included, India takes the title — more than 20 percent of the gold used decoratively worldwide is in the thread of Indian saris. Yet the largest reservoirs of gold aren't on the surface of the Earth but rather in the oceans — an estimated 10 billion tons. "Unfortunately, there is no practical way to get it out."

Question: Have you ever served up "cold slaw" or considered joining the "Peace Core" or been "boggled down" trying to explain things in "lame man's terms"? Don't worry, it's not incipient "old-timer's" disease.

Answer: Use one of these phrases and you've just "laid an eggcorn," derived from a misspelling of "acorn." These colorful English language errors can often be "more satisfying or poetic than the correct word or expression," says New Scientist magazine. Cole slaw is indisputably served cold, a layman is certainly lame compared to an expert and Alzheimer's disease does afflict old-timers.

What distinguishes these mistakes from ordinary malapropisms — words that are unintentionally confused with others that sound similar — is the creativity and logic behind them. Dictionaries are loaded with words reshaped by this sort of popular use: "straight-laced" and "just desserts," for example, are now used more often than "strait-laced" and "just deserts." Will eggcorns continue to hatch? This is a moot point (or is that mute?). Yet certainly anyone waiting with "baited" (bated) breath for "whole scale" (wholesale) changes may need to wait a while.

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