This person who seems well educated used the word “thesauri”. :
:
I don’t care if it may be technically correct, English has a perfectly good traditional plural form for that word!
Thanks Chefguy, but I’m very well versed in rip-rap. I’m a Civil Engineer specializing in hydrology & hydraulics; I specify rip-rap in many of my designs. BTW rip-rap doesn’t always refer to rock rip-rap; many old-timers have used such things as concrete or masonry rubble for rip-rap.
I’m also a she. 
So people actually refer to riprap as riffraff? How bizarre. Are they also in the biz? (40 years in construction, me)
Just regular-Joe type people. We have a lot of rock-lined channels in the state, so they’re common scenery to the general populace. We also have a high degree of illiteracy and people with poor spelling; so they pronounce things by how they’ve heard them, not how you spell 'em. Like my ex-husband who says Wal-Mark; or a girl I know who calls weiner dogs Dodsons.
This talk of rip-rap reminds me of a quote from the old SCS guys: “We take a perfectly good ditch and stop it up with rocks”. 
Yep, they do. I don’t think many people outside of the building trades have ever heard of riprap, or seen it written down. I’m over 60, my first husband worked in construction (hodcarrier) and the first time I heard about riprap was at a recent city council meeting. The city clerk typed it as “riffraff” in the minutes. She’d never heard it either. The city maintenance guy corrected her.
Riffraff sorta seemed to fit – bits and pieces of rock and busted concrete.
Well, that’s understandable. It’s not exactly something you hear in everyday conversation.
Oh God… I use so many of those… Ignorance vanquished, ego kicked in the nuts, I mean the eggcorns.
I thought of another one.
The word “swell” is used when the person actually means “swale”. I think it’s understandable because people are thinking of water “swelling” up in the swale. It still grates on my nerves.
Do I get up in the morning and take care of Doggie Duties or Doggie Doodies?
