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Advanced English Skills

28 июня 2024 13:57

Language Log
Eggcorn of the week: "checks every block"

"Significant energy source found under US-Mexico border", KXAN 6/23/2024 [emphasis added]:

Researchers have found a significant source of geothermal energy underneath the U.S.-Mexico border along the Rio Grande, which could lead to promising clean energy developme
nt in the rural region. […]

“There’s a thin, 10- to 15-mile-wide region that runs parallel or along the Rio Grande that has very high heat by at least by most standards, and even in the interior part of the county, which is probably two-thirds of the county,” Ken Wisian, head of the research team, told NewsNation. […]

“Geothermal has a lot to offer rural communities, underserved communities, something like Presidio checks every block on the very large federal investment in production in tax credits on renewable energy,” Wisian said.
Wiktionary has an entry for tick all the boxes, with the gloss "(idiomatic) To fulfill all the requirements, especially as itemized in a list; to have all the needed characteristics; to complete all the steps in a process in an orderly manner", and cross-references to the source of the metaphor checkbox or tickbox:

1. A space on a paper form that can be optionally filled with a check mark.
2. (graphical user interface) An on-screen box that can be optionally filled with a check mark, to enable or disable a setting.

The 19-billion-word NOW corpus has 342 hits for "checks every box", all of which are consistent with the Wiktionary entry, e.g.

That nickel position is obviously a starting spot in today's NFL, and he checks every box teams are looking for in that role.

If you love being able to stretch out on a sectional-style sofa but also want the option of a pullout bed, this sleeper sofa checks every box.

He checks every box in general manager Andrew Berry's "tough, smart, and accountable" mantra

That same source has 0 hits for "checks every block" — though the 14-billion-word iWeb corpus, along with its 24 hits for "checks every box", has 2 hits for "checks every block". But neither of those connects to the same check-box metaphor — rather, they're references to "blocks" as digital units in computer systems:

What you want is to make sure that all of the features of the hardware execute the software correctly. Go through the PCB and develop a test that checks every block. First, check that the device powers up.

During null block compression, RMAN checks every block to see if it has ever contained data. Blocks that have never contained data are not backed up. Blocks that have contained data, either currently or in the past, are backed up.

A web search for {"checks every block"} adds links connected to blocks in Minecraft. Like Process Control Blocks and file-system blocks, Minecraft blocks are a quasi-metaphorical abstraction from material blocks of ice or stone, but there's no easy metaphorical path from there to a "fulfill all the requirements" idiom.

But the metaphorical basis of idiom gets bleached out over time, so maybe the the quoted researcher has substituted block for box in his mental lexicon for the check-box idiom. Given long experience with similar journalistic episodes, I think it's more likely that the journalist misquoted him, either because of their own mental lexicon, or through a slip of the fingers in writing the story. Either way, it's a case where an eggcorn-ish word substitution has taken place, even though the original version retains an accessible metaphor that the substituion lacks.

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