Sources of usage consensus in language change

Shifting Idioms: An Eggcornucopia : OUPblog Original      New sleight of hand: 85%         15%: slight of hand fazed by:          71%         29%: phased by

Ben Zimmer lists the increasing changes (by 'false' analogy) in the spelling of some common English idioms. I saw his table and wondered what would happen in a Google Fight. Not only was the new usage prominent, it trounced the original with some vigor (first, second). Of course, in both of these examples the new spellings are homonyms, ie. somebody can be 'slight of hand' (as in have thin fingers) and lots of things electrical can be 'phased by' other things electrical but when searching for those phrases the at least, the first handful of results was the new spelling.

This brings up an interesting question as to the relevance of a properly sampled corpus with regard to language usage consensus. Quite obviously common usage is reinforced on the internet in a variety of ways that are better accounted for by sociology than linguistics. I’m sure there’s research on this out there.