Breath [posted by Troy]
So, I was thinking today that Bated Breath & Baited Breath, mean different things. Bate and Bait are quite different: It’s easy to mock, but there’s a real problem here. Bated and baited sound the same and we no longer use bated (let alone the verb to bate), outside this one set phrase, which has become an idiom. Confusion is almost inevitable. Bated here is a contraction of abated through loss of the unstressed first vowel (a process called aphesis); it has the meaning “reduced, lessened, lowered in force”. So bated breath refers to a state in which you almost stop breathing through terror, awe, extreme anticipation, or anxiety. See the full commentary from World Wide Words.
10:08:47 PM  permanent link Google It!
|
|
