Today, I found a free copy of 303 magazine at the pizza place I frequent. It’s one of those local magazines about local restaurants and fashion shows and so on. It’s a high-budget glossy monthly. What struck me was that in one of the articles, the author uses the phrase “baited breath” meaning, of course, to say “bated breath.”

Now, I’m not trying to ridicule the author here. I’ve made similar mistakes in my time, once using the phrase “tow the line” on this site when I meant “toe the line.” So, a mistake isn’t a big deal, but what I do object to with puritanical certitude is this explanation of the idiom that seems to suggest that the new wrong spelling should be tolerated:

The correct spelling is actually bated breath but it’s so common these days to see it written as baited breath that there’s every chance that it will soon become the usual form, to the disgust of conservative speakers and the confusion of dictionary writers.

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.

I don’t know if I’m a “conservative speaker” or not, but I do know that the phrase “baited breath” makes no sense whatsoever. How is breath baited? And, if breath were baited, it would still have nothing to do with the intended meaning of the idiom “bated breath.”

Another idiom that people often confuse is “free rein” which is often supplanted by “free reign.” The idiom is about giving a horse free rein to move his head, but the phrase “free reign” at least still makes some sense in light of the intended meaning of the idiom. So no biggie.

However, anyone who fancies himself a writer should be able to figure out that the word “bated” is at least related in some way to the common word “abated.” So, naturally, “abated breath” means something like “diminished breath” so “bated breath” isn’t exactly a stretch. But, I vehemently oppose with grim, grim schoolmarm-type enthusiasm the use of the phrase “baited breath” at any time. The assert that use of the phrase should be given a free pass is to promote incoherence.