etymology - What is the name of combination, in error, of similar or related words? (E.g.: segueway)


Is there a technical term for combination, in error, of similar or related words? This question is prompted by the following malapropism or solecism, from an article by Elizabeth Montalbano in InformationWeek:



The project also serves as a segueway into the next-generation Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS), a program by NOAA that also will collect weather and climate data.



The writer presumably formed segueway by miscegenation of segue with Segway. The problem does not seem to be a simple typographical error, which "includes errors due to mechanical failure or slips of the hand or finger, but usually excludes errors of ignorance, such as spelling errors." It also seems unlikely to be a neologism. Some processes of word formation -- agglutination, back-formation, blending, etc. -- of course are in play here, but those terms don't imply error.



Answer



Misjuxtaposition is used in these situations. It's something that exists in "common use", but not the dictionary so I don't know that that would count here.


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