ANN ARBOR– In the wake of their 1-1 tie Tuesday night with the Yaks, Hopslam found themselves in the midst of a heated debate over a number of items, including which ref was worse, which Yak player was said “no hard feelings” the most, and whether one “wolf’s” down food or “woofs down” food.
And while it was generally agreed on the first two fronts that it “really doesn’t matter,” neither camp was willing to back down on the final issue. “Dude, you don’t ‘woof’ food down. That’s a sound of a dog barking. The direction is outward,” noted forward Matt Okray.
“Yes, you do. Ever see a dog it? He woofs it down,” remarked goalie Brad Johnson, avid dog lover.
Others, including defenseman and part-time philologist Justin Baier noted that “the first use of the phrase was in an 1862 novel titled ‘The Seven Sons of Mammon,’ where it reads: ‘[She] used to wolf her food with her fingers.'”
Baier then noted that the use of “woof” is what Language Log, from the Institute for Research in Cognitive Science at the University of Pennsylvania, has coined an “eggcorn.” Baier noted that this is a mispronunciation that results from not knowing the proper spelling wherein the object or subject resembles the misspelling. “Since an acorn kinda looks like an egg, one could easily mistake it for ‘eggcorn,'” explained Baier.
The team stared blankly for a moment before completely ignoring the explanation and continued arguing rather than showering after the game.