let alone - alt.usage.english

Message from discussion let alone

Donna Richoux

View profile

More options Dec 8 2003, 2:09 pm

Newsgroups: alt.usage.english

From: t...@euronet.nl (Donna Richoux)

Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2003 20:08:44 +0100

Local: Mon, Dec 8 2003 2:08 pm

Subject: Re: let alone

  Reply to author
  |
  Forward
  | Print
  | View thread
  | Show original
  | Report this message
  | Find messages by this author
  

John Hall <wweexxsseesss...@telus.net> wrote:
> t...@euronet.nl (Donna Richoux) wrote:

> >That's a good one. You got me to start updating my list of those sort of
> >change-mistakes, like "hare's breath" for "hair's breadth," ...

> does your list have:

> 'tact' for 'tack' ("We'll try another tact")

No, I didn't. I had "intact/in tact/in tack/in tacked," but that's
different.

> 'interm' for 'interim', though 'interm' may have become acceptable in
> some circles (not mine) by now

I'm hunting for evidence that that is used. I found a great many hits
for "interm," but they seem to be academic terms, short for
"intermediate" or they're used in financial circles (I can't be sure if
those mean "intermediate" or something else).

Oh, wait, here are some, found by searching on "in the interm":

This means that you will not have any build options, but this
situation will work in the interm, until you have time to build and
install PHP yourself. ...

TMN standards can take too long. in the interm proprietary
solutions become available.

After six years Marine Service and having assumed family
responsabilities in the interm, Dudlt joined the school on the 13th
October 1947.

----

All right, let me finish pasting the list together. As I said, I don't
quite know what to call them (I file them under "Change-Mistakes"), and
I don't quite know how to define them, but here they are:

another tack/another tact
a fly in the ointment/a flaw in the ointment
another think coming/another thing coming
bald-faced/boldfaced (lies)
beck and call/beckon call
defuse/diffuse (tension, a crisis)
for all intents and purposes / for all intensive purposes /
for all extents and purposes
free rein/free reign
get on track/get untracked
hair's breadth/hare's breath (also other combos)
home in on/hone in on
incidents/incidence/instance
intact/ in tact /in tack/ in tacked.
in the interim/in the interm
let alone/little own
party hearty/party hardy (Nearly even in usage)
piqued my curiosity/peaked my curiosity (ratio 6660:1620)
prima donna/pre-madonna (deliberate? Album title)
still and all/still in all
toe the line/tow the line

------

My thanks to everyone who has contributed over the years.

Things I'm not putting on this list:

Dictionary-accepted spelling variants.
Single occurrences; I'm looking for a degree of wide-spreadness.

--
Best -- Donna Richoux

Reply to author Forward