[lit-ideas] rack & ruin
- From: Julie Krueger <juliereneb@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 12 Nov 2011 04:30:52 -0600
I once jumped all over a speaker for using the phrase "wreck havoc" instead
of "wreak havoc". I stand by that one. I found the below confusion
interesting (confusion generally gets my attention):
From World Wide Words:
3. Q and A: Wrack or rack?
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Q. Recently I had a discussion about "rack your brains" and "wrack
your brains". The spelling seems to depend on whether one thinks the
phrase derives from the rack, the medieval torture device, or from a
variant of "wreak" or "wreck", to destroy. I side with the former,
though I realize I have no evidence. And it seems "wrack and ruin"
has a similar confusion. I've been painfully stretching my brains
over this question. Help! [Scott Underwood]
A. These expressions certainly cause confusion. Some style guides,
such as Garner's Modern American Usage, argue that the correct forms
are "rack one's brains" and "wrack and ruin". The current edition of
Fowler says equally positively that, at least in British English,
"rack" is correct in both cases. Etymologists know that the various
forms of "rack" and "wrack" (and "wreak" and "wreck") have become
inextricably confused down the centuries and have identified so many
historical examples of "wrack one's brains" and "rack and ruin" that
to insist on one over the other is etymologically insupportable. Dr
Robert Burchfield, editor of the current Fowler, comments that "nine
homonymous nouns and seven homonymous verbs" exist and despairingly
adds "All the complexities of this exceedingly complicated word
cannot be set down here; spare an hour (at least) to consult a large
dictionary, especially the OED". I can tell you from experience that
doing so can leave you even more confused.
Let's start by finding you the evidence that you lack for "rack your
brains", an idiom that has been known with "wit" and "memory"
instead of "brains". The earliest example known is in this poem:
Care for the world to do thy bodie right;
Racke not thy wit to winne by wicked waies.
[Care For Thy Soule, by William Byrd, in his Medius,
published in 1583 and republished in Select poetry ... of
the reign of Queen Elizabeth, by Edward Farr, 1845.]
"Rack" as a verb derives from the Middle English noun for a frame on
which materials were stretched for drying, so similar in sense and
application to a tenter (see
http://wwwords.org?TNTRH<http://wwwords.org/?TNTRH>).
The modern
sense of rack retains this spelling. A century before William Byrd
was writing, the noun had shifted to mean the torture frame and more
generally something that causes physical or mental suffering. The
verb appeared about the same time, initially in senses that were
associated with the stretching of cloth. By the middle of the next
century it had extended to mean being racked with the pain of an
illness, to twisting the meaning of words, and extorting money by
outrageously increasing the amount demanded.
These historical sources might lead us to argue for "rack one's
brain". However, by the seventeenth century, "wrack" was already
being used; indeed, my non-scientific investigations suggest that it
was more common than "rack". Both are used today, with "wrack" more
usual in the US and "rack" in Britain.
In your other expression, often spelled "wrack and ruin", "wrack" is
from a different source, Old English "wrecan", to drive. In early
usage, it meant vengeance or revenge; by the fifteenth century, it
had taken on the idea of damage, disaster, or severe injury caused
by violence. It is linked to "wreak", as in "to wreak havoc", and
"wreck", in the ship sense. ("Wrack" for seaweed is also a member of
the set, as is the sense of high, fast-moving cloud, thought to be
torn by the wind.)
The earliest example of "wrack and ruin" in the OED is dated 1659,
but confusion between the spellings "wrack" and "rack" had already
begun, because the form "rack and ruin" is known from a document of
1599 quoted in Thomas Fowler's History of Corpus Christi College.
If you're not totally confused by now, you surely should be. The
best that I can do is to quote from another guide, which gives the
standard US advice:
Probably the most sensible attitude would be to ignore
the etymologies of rack and wrack (which, of course, is
exactly what most people do) and regard them simply as
spelling variants of one word. If you choose to toe the
line drawn by the commentators, however, you will want to
write nerve-racking, rack one's brains, storm-wracked, and
for good measure wrack and ruin. Then you will have
nothing to worry about being criticized for - except, of
course, for using too many clichés.
[Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage,
1994.]
Julie Krueger
Other related posts:
