Chris
Canton, MI
5
Comments
0.050
Avg Sentiment
1
Positive
3
Neutral
1
Negative
Canton, MI
Somebody congratulate me! This was my first Sunday ever that I used no hints or clues and that I looked nothing up! And I set a personal best record for a Sunday (I will not share that time LOL). I didn't even need help figuring out the word-play theme. I know some of y'all do this all the time, but this was my first! Yay!
Grammatically distressed every time I'm reminded that 'wrack' is being inevitably replaced by 'rack.' It's like the slow phasing out of the word 'whom,' from the language. No one is doing it on purpose. And to whom does one petition for its preservation? Re: wrack: even a quick, cursory internet review of the etymology of the word would prove just how important that 'w' is, to the meaning. There is no such thing as 'rack and ruin,' just like a ship is not 'recked' and one does not 'reak' havoc. I'm no linguist, and it took me all of 7 seconds to find on Wikipedia: "[rack and ruin]: Etymologically incorrect, due to confusion of rack (“torture, suffer”) with wrack (“destroy”). Correct is wrack and ruin, which is accordingly preferred by style guides; however, both are common and well-established. Unusually, rack and ruin replaces wrack with rack, presumably by alliteration; other confusions instead replace rack with wrack"
@Chris I'm reminded of the etymology of 'whale' provided by Melville at the opening of Moby-Dick, in which he quotes Richard Hakluyt's observation: "While you take in hand to school others, and to teach them by what name a whale-fish is to be called in our tongue, leaving out, through ignorance, the letter H, which almost alone maketh up the signification of the word, you deliver that which is not true" Leaving out the letter W from wrack, which almost alone makes up the signification of the word, delivers that which is not true.
I'm looking at it. Solved. On my screen. I still don't get it.
@Carrie Programmers have been using hashtags for nearly 50 years.
All 5 comments loaded