The story I’d heard was not that it’s a transcription error, but closer to a pun. Readers would be familiar with the term for a ship’s rope, and the minor linguistic shift highlighted the absurdity of such an idea.

Interesting though about translations to other languages. I’ll have to dig further on the subject.

Republicans (and people in general, TBH) don’t make the same mistake twice.

They make it 6 or 7 times, at least.