Dingo the Dissident

THE BLOG OF DISQUIET : Qweir Notions, an uncommonplace-book from the Armpit of Diogenes, binge-thinker jottings since 2008 .

Monday, 28 December 2020

In almost every novel I read

the word wrack appears as a verb.
Dear authors (and journalists)
WRACK (noun) is a type of seaweed
seen around many shores.
There is no verb.
TO RACK (verb) wine, brains or bodies
means (1) to separate sediment in wine by turning bottles
sitting horizontally in a supporting structure
known as a wine-rack;
(2) to torture by means of stretching the body
limb from limb on an apparatus
known as a rack, which was very popular
in mediæval and 'renaissance' Europe.

Jars of spices may rest upon a spice-rack
but (as with a toast-rack)
neither removal of sediment nor torture is involved.


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