1030. This week, we look at why "hang" has two past-tense forms: "hanged" and "hung." (And why I keep messing them up!) Then we expand on why "pair" can be singular or plural. And finally we look at why we hear some words only in set phrases such as "bated breath," "throes of agony," and "to and fro."
1030. This week, we look at why "hang" has two past-tense forms: "hanged" and "hung." (And why I keep messing them up!) Then we expand on why "pair" can be singular or plural. And finally we look at why we hear some words only in set phrases such as "bated breath," "throes of agony," and "to and fro."
The "archaic language" segment was written by Karen Lunde, a former Quick and Dirty Tips editor who has crafted hundreds of articles on the art of writing well. She was an online education pioneer, founding one of the first online writing workshops. These days, she provides writing tips and writing coach services at HelpMeWriteBetter.com.
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Grammar Girl here. I’m Mignon Fogarty, your friendly guide to the English language. We talk about writing, history, rules, and other cool stuff. Today, I have two follow-ups to recent shows, and then we'll talk about archaic words that persist in modern phrases.Â
by Mignon Fogarty
A couple of weeks ago I missed an incorrect use of the word "hung" when I was editing an episode that mentioned Guy Fawkes being hanged for treason — instead saying he was "hung" for treason — so we'll start today by going over the proper use in case I confused people.
The standard quip is that curtains are hung and people are hanged. It’s not quite that cut-and-dried — some of my reference books say "hung" isn’t wrong, just less customary, when referring to past executions, and the Random House Unabridged Dictionary says that "hung" is becoming more common — but the majority of my books agree that the standard English past tense of "hang" is "hanged" when you are talking about dangling people or animals from a rope, and in other cases, it’s "hung."
It always seemed odd to me that there would be two past-tense forms of the word "hang" that differ depending on their meaning, so I did a little research and found out that in Old English there were two different words for "hang" ("hon" and "hangien"), and the entanglement of these words (plus an Old Norse word "hengjan") is responsible for there being two past-tense forms of the word "hang" today. (1, 2, 3) The two past-tense forms seem to have co-existed in English for a while, with some regional differences, "hung" being more common in northern England, for example.
"Hung" eventually became the dominant past-tense form everywhere, except in legal uses (talking about hangings), which is a relatively common thing. The language of the law tends to change much slower than most other types of language. So that's how we ended up with two different forms.
Today, Garner's Modern English Usage says that using "hung" for "hanged" is at stage three on his Language-Change Index, which he describes as "Widespread: the form becomes commonplace even among many well-educated people but is still avoided in careful usage."Â And I confess that it doesn't jump out at me. In fact, the last time I covered the topic was when I misused "hung" the same way in a piece back in 2016.Â
The way I tell people to remember the difference — besides the "curtains are hung" quip — is to think of Yosemite Sam saying "Well, I'll be hanged" since there were a lot of hanging in the Old West. Maybe that'll work better for you than it apparently does for me!
And thanks to the listeners who wrote to me about it.
by Mignon Fogarty
Last week, I mentioned that "pair," can be singular or plural, so you might be wondering what's up with that.
Well, a pair is two of something, but a pair can be singular or plural — it’s one of those odd English nouns (like "couple") that can be singular or plural depending on how you’re thinking of the people or items in question.Â
If you're thinking of the two things as separate entities, you use the plural verb. For example, let's say someone named Hanz has two schnauzers entered in a dog show. Someone might say, “Hanz's pair are both good candidates to win,” treating "pair" as plural. The pair are good candidates because they're two distinct dogs.
On the other hand, if you're thinking of the pair of something as a single entity, like a pair of scissors or a pair of shoes, you treat "pair" as singular: You might get excited when you see your favorite Hokas on the discount rack and pull your friend over while saying, "This pair is on sale!" "This pair is" because you're going to pay one price and you're thinking of those shoes as one thing.Â
It gets trickier for me when you use the plural noun with "pair." For example, I would want to say, "Your pair of scissors are on the table," not "Your pair of scissors is on the table." Using the singular, even though it's only one thing, sounds wrong to me when the plural noun "scissors" comes right before the verb.
But The American Heritage Dictionary and Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage both say I'm wrong. Neither of them cite exceptions to the rule, and the American Heritage Dictionary is emphatic, saying "The singular is always used when 'pair' denotes the set taken as a single entity," and uses the example "This pair of shoes is on sale."
So that seems to really be the rule. I don't want to lead you astray, but I think I'd be likely to rewrite the sentence so I don't have to say it that way.Â
So that's the deal with "pair" being both singular and plural. It's plural when the pair is two separate things and singular when the pair is one thing.
And what about a pair of twins? Well, it turns out there's a little bit of confusion about that phrase too because some people take the phrase literally and argue that since "twins" already means two people, a pair of twins has to be four people.Â
But the phrase "a pair of twins" is the common idiom we use to talk about two people who happen to be twins. All the style guides agree. A pair of twins is two people.
The only thing you have to think about here is whether "pair of twins" is redundant or unnecessary. If you're writing something like, "They have a pair of twins," just writing "They have twins," almost always works just as well.
And finally, I mentioned at the beginning that "pair" is like "couple," so let's talk about that. "Couple" and "pair" are both what we call collective nouns — nouns that describe a group — but they're both a little different from the other collective nouns like "team," "family," and "orchestra."Â
In American English, we usually treat those collective nouns as singular, and in British English, they usually treat those nouns as plural. So in American English, we'd write "The team is on the field," and in British English, they'd write, "The team are on the field."
But "couple" and "pair" are both about groups that include only two people, and they both have this "it depends on how you think about it" rule going on. So with "couple," as with "pair," if you're thinking of the couple as a single unit, you treat the word like a singular noun, and if you're thinking of the couple as two separate individuals, you treat the words like a plural noun.
For example, you would say, “The couple are vacationing sepaÂrately this year,” because you have a sense of two individual people doing two separate things.
 But you would say, “Each couple is going to Bermuda on a different week,” because each pair, each couple, is being thought of as a unit.Â
You just have to use your best judgment, and even though this seems tricky, the good news is that you can never really get it wrong because you can always say you were thinking of the couple as individuals (or as a unit) if someone questions your verb choice.
by Karen Lunde
When you were a child, did you ever hear that someone was "waiting with bated breath" and wonder what the heck that meant? Maybe you heard the word as "baited" — b-a-i-t-e-d — and thought of a worm wiggling on a hook.Â
Yuck! Worm breath!
But "bated" in this phrase is spelled differently: b-a-t-e-d. And its meaning has nothing to do with fish bait.Â
"Bated" is a shortened form of the word "abated," meaning "reduced" or "lessened." In the context of the phrase "bated breath," it means you're holding back or restraining your breathing because you're anxious, in suspense, or excited.
The shortened form "bated" appears to have been first used by Shakespeare in 1596 in "The Merchant of Venice." He wrote:Â
Shall I bend low and, in a bondman's key,
With bated breath and whisp'ring humbleness,
Say this…
Over time, "bated" became the standard spelling in this phrase, and we continued to use "abated" in other contexts. These days, we only seem to use the word "bated" as part of the phrase "bated breath." You'll almost never hear it anywhere else.Â
"Bated" is an archaic word. When we talk about "archaic words," we're basically referring to old-fashioned words that aren't used in everyday speech anymore. These words might pop up in old books, historical documents, or even in legal language. But if you tried to use them in a normal conversation today, people would probably give you weird looks.
The interesting thing is, some of these archaic words stick around in certain phrases or sayings even after they've fallen out of use otherwise. Let's look at some others.
"Wreak" basically means "to cause or inflict something," usually something bad or destructive. When we say "wreak havoc," we're talking about causing damage or chaos. A family of rabbits can wreak havoc on a vegetable garden. A toddler could wreak havoc on the living room walls with a pack of markers. (But let's hope those things don't happen.)
"Wreak" comes from an Old English word, "wrecan," [[WREH-kahn]] which meant "to drive out, punish, or avenge."Â
"Wreak" is actually related to the word "wreck." They both come from the same ancient root. But while "wreck" went down the path of destruction and ruin, "wreak" stuck to the "cause" or "inflict" definition.
These days, you'll mostly hear "wreak" paired up with "havoc," but sometimes people might say things like "wreak vengeance" or "wreak punishment" if they're feeling extra dramatic or old-school.
"Fro" is basically an old way of saying "from." When we say "to and fro," we're talking about moving back and forth, like a ping pong ball bouncing between two players or a dog scampering "to and fro" as it plays.Â
"Fro" comes from the Old English word "fra," which meant "from" or "away." In the context of the phrase "to and fro," "to" means "toward." So, when you say something is moving "to and fro," you're saying it's moving "toward and away."
These days, you'll pretty much only hear "fro" in the phrase "to and fro."Â
"Throes" (T-H-R-O-E-S) refers to an intense struggle, pain, or distress. When we say someone is "in the throes of" something, we mean they're right in the middle of a really tough or intense experience. It's like being tangled in a web — you're stuck in the middle of something overwhelming and trying to break free from all sides.
Originally, "throes" was used to talk about the pain of dying, but now we use it for all sorts of intense situations. It comes from an Old English word, "thraw," which meant pain or agony. Before that, it traces back to even older Germanic words related to twisting or turning. (Imagine twisting in pain — not fun!)
Today, we mostly use "throes" in the phrase "in the throes of." You might hear things like:
Even though "throes" is plural, we almost always use it with singular meaning, or to refer to a bunch of challenges collectively. You don't hear about just one "throe."
We think of the word "fell" as the past tense of "fall" — "Mark fell down and skinned his knee yesterday." It can also be used in the context of making a tree fall, as in "An arborist will fell the badly infected tree in the park tomorrow."
But in the phrase "in one fell swoop," "fell" means cruel, deadly, or destructive. We're talking about doing something all at once, usually in a sudden or ruthless way. This "fell" comes from a word in Old French that's pronounced the same but spelled f-e-l, meaning "cruel" or "treacherous." That word came from the Medieval Latin "fello," which is where we get the word "felon," as in a criminal.
"In one fell swoop" is another phrase we can thank Shakespeare for. In Macbeth, Macduff talks about how his family was murdered "at one fell swoop," like a bird of prey diving down to grab its dinner in one go. Like all the other words we've discussed, you're unlikely to hear the word "fell," with this particular meaning, outside the phrase "one fell swoop."
Language is always evolving, but some old words cling to relevance in the phrases we use without thinking. They're remnants of the past to remind us that while the way we speak may change, the ideas and emotions behind our words endure. So next time you say you're "waiting with bated breath," you'll know you're keeping a little piece of history alive.
That segment was written by Karen Lunde, a former Quick and Dirty Tips editor who has crafted hundreds of articles on the art of writing well. She was an online education pioneer, founding one of the first online writing workshops. These days, she provides writing tips and writing coach services at HelpMeWriteBetter.com.
Finally, I have a familect story.
Hi, Mignon, this is Dallas Kennedy with a familect story.
You might remember me from your book tours, and we have some friends in common.
I wasn't sure if you got my earlier family X story on the voicemail, so I'm recording it again now on WhatsApp.
Your recent episode about speech errors and substitutions prompted me to write this down and get it to you. I've been thinking about it for a while. When my daughter Sophia was age three, or four, or five, she would mangle words by switching consonants. The ones I remember include "farfals" for "flowers," "kibas" for "because," and "adjurlies" for "allergies."
There were others I'm sure, but I don't remember them.
I said to Sophia she should occasionally go back to this cute toddler mangling of words, as she'll outgrow it eventually, like touching the tip of her nose with the tip of her tongue.
That's my familect story.
Thanks!
Thanks, Dallas. I absolutely remember you, and I've enjoyed following you on social media ever since we met at my book signing. Thanks for coming out all those years ago, and thanks for the cute familect stories today.Â
If you want to share your familect, the story of a word your family and only your family uses, call the voicemail line at 83-321-4-GIRL or send it to me through a WhatsApp voice chat. You'll find both in the show notes, and be sure to tell me the story behind the familect because that's always the best part.
And I have one last piece of fun news: Grammarpalooza subscribers are going to get a bonus episode tomorrow. I talked about a classic satirical dictionary called The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce with Jim Norrena, a copy editor in the San Francisco Bay Area who I also met many years ago at one of my book signings. We laugh through some of the hilarious definitions, but also marvel over Bierce's wild life and discover the surprising reason he may have called himself a devil.
If you want to support the show and get this fun bonus episode, you can sign up right in Apple Podcasts or visit quickanddirtytips.com/bonus to learn more. And all those will be in the show notes too. So much in the show notes these days!
Grammar Girl is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast. Thanks to Holly Hutchings in digital operations; Dan Feierabend in audio; Morgan Christianson in advertising; Brannan Goetschius, director of podcasts; Davina Tomlin in marketing; and Nat Hoopes in marketing, whose middle name is Benjamin Franklin.
And I'm Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl and author of the tip-a-day book "The Grammar Daily." That's all. Thanks for listening.
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The following references for the "hanged" and "hung" segment did not appear in the audio but are included here for completeness.