Several readers have written in response to our discussion of caboodle reminding us of the reanalysis of the phrase “kit and caboodle” as “kitten caboodle”. ‘Reanalysis’ means that the words in a phrase are incorrectly separated (misanalyzed) and reanalyzed as a different phrase. This results from mishearing or unfamiliarity with the spelling of the phrase.
Children are very likely to reanalyze phrases they have never heard before. It was a child who reported learning a song about some cross-eyed bear named “Gladly” in Sunday School when the teacher thought she was teaching the hymn, “Gladly, the Cross I’d Bear”. We have immortialized some of the best in our “In Church” section of the Out of the Mouths of Babes pages (click here).
Lew Jury reported “kitten caboodle” and Alan Janesh reminded me of “for all intensive purposes” instead of “all intents and purposes”. Superman, of course, despised being “taken for granite”. Better learn how to spell these phrases properly: it isn’t just a “doggy-dog world” out there (dog-eat-dog world) and spelling is mission critical if you wish to be taken seriously.
My favorite reanalysis of all time, however, turned up in a freshman composition collected by a colleague in the English Department at Bucknell, Mardy Mumford, when I was teaching there. The author of this piece accused someone of having a “devil-make-hair” (devil-may-care) attitude.