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  • a word or phrase treated as an object within another expression. "A lady's 'verily' is as potent as a lord's." -- William Shakespeare.

    http://rinkworks.com/words/linguistics.shtml

    August 4, 2009

  • Also a misspelling or mispronunciation in which two letters in a word are switched in position. Misspelled metallege by no less an authority than Dmitri Borgmann.

    August 4, 2009

  • This species of interference . . . . may be called Metallagē, or more simply "Cross Compensation," a name I gave it towards a quarter of a century ago . . . . the earlier of two letters is displaced by a later one; but then, instead of repeating the latter in its proper place, the hand instantly and automatically executes the mental instruction first given it by dashing in the earlier and displaced letter where the later one should be written; the result, therefore, has the aspect of a simple interchange; e.g. . . . Padoga for pagoda . . . .

    --T. Le Marchant Douse, 1900, "On some minor psychological interferences: a study of misspellings and related mistakes." Mind: A Quarterly Review of Psychology and Philosophy 9: 88

    August 4, 2009