Thursday, August 20, 2009

Criminal Sentence 266: Royally Bad Sentence

From a book about the craft of writing:

"Often the words are out before we can reign them in."

"Reign" refers to leading, as in "The queen reigned for 50 years." "La reine" is queen in French, in case you wanted to know.

"Rein" refers to an animal harness, as in "Santa hooked up the reins to the reindeer."

I was disappointed to see a writing book abuse this word.

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