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Donna Richoux  
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 More options Dec 8 2003, 2:13 pm
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
From: t...@euronet.nl (Donna Richoux)
Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2003 20:13:20 +0100
Local: Mon, Dec 8 2003 2:13 pm
Subject: Re: let alone
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Donna Richoux <t...@euronet.nl> wrote:
> 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.

After I posted that, I realized I had a few more that I kept separate
because they were older. Also the historical association is not always
certain:

nip it in the bud/nip it in the butt
not by a long chalk / not by a long shot
off one's own bat/off one's own back
palm off/pawn off/(pass off)
spitting image / spit and image / spirit and image / split and image
strait and narrow (from Bible) --> straight and narrow (used since 1930)

--
Best -- Donna Richoux


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