Along with this eggcorn came a classical malapropism as well. |
I suspect that the spelling was a folk etymology, an eggcorn, that replaced the unfamiliar element linch with the familiar word lynch. |
Robert Coren checked out my last eggcorn posting on LL and inquired. |
That one seems to be a joke, though it's hard to be sure, but there are many folks out there for whom the same phrase is an eggcorn. |
If I'm right about this, it's only the spelling that signals the eggcorn, because lynchpin of course sounds just like linchpin. |
I really enjoy reading your ' eggcorn ' entries on the Language Log. |