Eggcorn of the week: "checks every block"
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"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 development 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:
- A space on a paper form that can be optionally filled with a check mark.
- (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 (or concrete or cheese…), but there's no easy metaphorical path from there to a "fulfill all the requirements" idiom.
But the metaphorical basis of an 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.
Update — Gregory Kusnick's comment is a good one:
The lack of evidence Out There for "checks every block" perhaps suggests that this instance might be better classified as a one-off malapropism.
The whole idea about "eggcorns" was that they're somewhere between malapropisms and folk etymologies, and this does indeed seem to be near the malapropism end of the spectrum.
Dick Margulis said,
June 28, 2024 @ 7:37 am
The quoted speech has a number of disfluencies, among which block for box doesn't seem more salient than the rest. Hard to say whether the error is the researcher's or the reporter's (like you, I suspect the latter). Not everyone offered English as a first language accepts the offer.
Cervantes said,
June 28, 2024 @ 7:37 am
Since this occurred within a recorded interview, it's possible it resulted from a machine transcription. If the sibilant at the end of "box" wasn't audible on the recording, it's a mistake the machine could make, and the reporter just didn't check it. I'm using machine transcription for my own interviews now (as I've noted here before) and it's pretty good but once in a while goes wrong.
Philip Taylor said,
June 28, 2024 @ 7:49 am
Dick — What exactly do you mean by "Not everyone offered English as a first language accepts the offer" ? What sort of counter-example(s) did you have in mind ?
Dick Margulis said,
June 28, 2024 @ 8:16 am
@Philip: I've edited a great deal of text over the decades written by American children of American parents who are geniuses within their particular engineering or artistic specialties but who I'm quite sure did not make it into college on the basis of their verbal scores. My model for how they generate strings goes something like this: There's a word cloud of content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs). There's a second cloud consisting of particles, pronouns, determiners, punctuation marks, what-have-you. The author knows what they're talking about, so they pick some pertinent words from the content word cloud, disregarding syntax; they sprinkle in a proportional number of elements from the other cloud. They have a single rule of inference, namely that if a period follows a letter, the period is in turn followed by a space and a capital letter. That defines a sentence, and it is then incumbent on the poor editor to figure out what that sentence is intended to say. Those are the counterexamples I have in mind. Am I bitter? Am I snarky? Perhaps a bit.
Benjamin E. Orsatti said,
June 28, 2024 @ 8:18 am
Philip,
I believe it was a (largely justified) jab at those who are poor caretakers of our treasured word-horde.
Philip Taylor said,
June 28, 2024 @ 8:36 am
OK, fair enough, so it is not that they rejected English as a first language in favour of some other language (other than one of their own creation) but rather that they rejected learning English (grammar, syntax, semantics, punctuation, etc.) in favour of learning other things (such as mathematics, engineering, art, whatever). Thank you, I now understand.
BZ said,
June 28, 2024 @ 2:28 pm
Aren't those square things with checkmarks in computer programs still called checkboxes? At least, we as programmers call them that.
Mark Liberman said,
June 28, 2024 @ 4:38 pm
@BZ: "Aren't those square things with checkmarks in computer programs still called checkboxes? At least, we as programmers call them that."
Um, that's the whole point of the post? Did you read it, specifically the reference to the Wiktionary gloss for checkbox?
Rodger C said,
June 28, 2024 @ 5:41 pm
While we're at it, has "word-horde" replaced "word-hoard"?
RfP said,
June 28, 2024 @ 5:52 pm
@ Dick Margulis
In fact, you might just say that it’s check-a-block with errors.
Gregory Kusnick said,
June 28, 2024 @ 6:17 pm
The lack of evidence Out There for "checks every block" perhaps suggests that this instance might be better classified as a one-off malapropism.
And I'm with Rodger: one hoards treasure; one doesn't treasure hordes.
Jonathan Silk said,
June 29, 2024 @ 1:39 am
Probably I'm doing this wrong, because I never used it before, but when I (tried to?) use the corpus indicated to search for "checks all the boxes" (also check, without s) I got nothing, but to me this is the very common expression, rather than one with 'every'. A google search shows that "checks all the boxes" is very common.
Am I missing something?
Philip Taylor said,
June 29, 2024 @ 5:05 am
Well, being British, I searched the corpora for "ticks all the boxes" and was told : "1 [See 'word page' for individual words to the right] [Save words and phrases and see/use them later] TICKS ALL THE BOXES 3977 4102 " — what information was returned for your search, Jonathan ?
Mark Liberman said,
June 29, 2024 @ 5:12 am
@JonathanSilk: "Probably I'm doing this wrong, because I never used it before, but when I (tried to?) use the corpus indicated to search for "checks all the boxes" (also check, without s) I got nothing, but to me this is the very common expression, rather than one with 'every'."
Your intuition about frequency is correct, and you're indeed missing something about how to use the cited corpora:
Philip Taylor said,
June 29, 2024 @ 5:22 am
So "ticks all the boxes" is (roughly) twice as common in the NOW corpus as "checks all the boxes". Interesting …