3 ms·

Very off-topic, but I've seen this twice this week already: it's free rein (as in horses), not free reign [1]. [1] https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/

• pocpoczoc 7y ago
  Fuck you. I started a saying 'free reign' that means this. He adopted it. Nobody cares about you and your horses.
• zimpenfish 7y ago
  But since "free reign" has been about since 1834, there's about a 40/60 split between "reign" and "rein", and both make the same sense, I don't think anyone except daft old prescriptivists would care now, do you? https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/03/26/rein-or-reign/ https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/03/26/rein-or-reign...
  • jklm 7y ago
    I'm not sure I buy that argument - according to the article it's a 20/80 split between "take the reigns"/"take the reins" with about the same number of samples. In that case, "take the reigns" seems egregiously wrong, and I question either the statistics or the sampled population.
    • zimpenfish 7y ago
      > In that case, "take the reigns" seems egregiously wrong But still understandable with the kind of context - "take the reins" and "take the reigns" would be imply "take control", no? (Sure, it's clunky, but that's English for you.)
      • jklm 7y ago
        It is understandable and doesn't "effect" my comprehension, but that doesn't mean that the net "affect" is equivalent or desirable. :)