Gutteral&thinsp is a common misspelling of guttural, but these examples indicate that the orthographic shift often accompanies a semantic shift, evoking various associations with the figurative gutter (low-down, vulgar) or even the gut (visceral, intense).
Rush Limbaugh’s recent quasi-apology for referring to oral sex with a “guttural term” (as rendered in two transcripts of the radio broadcast) is something of an auditory version of this eggcorn. It’s possible that the “down-in-the-gutter” sense is overtaking the “back-of-the-throat” articulatory sense of guttural, however spelled.
[Update, 6 Nov 05: See this Language Log post for much more on the subject.]
