Receive Our Writing Tips via Email“Wracking” or “Racking” Your Brain?
Sherry Beth Connot writes:
Every time I read how someone wracked their brain, I think it should be racked, and according to my dictionary it should. Can you explain why wracked is being used this way?
The words rack and wrack have been confused with one another for a very long time. Sometimes the expression “to go to wrack and ruin” is written as “to go to rack and ruin.”
The word rack has numerous meanings, both as a noun and as a verb. As a noun it originated from a word for “framework” which was probably related to a verb meaning “to stretch out.” The original framework was no doubt used for some innocent occupation such as stretching leather. Later on some evil so-and-so adapted that kind of rack for the purpose of torturing human beings by stretching their limbs.
It is from the torture rack that we get the expression “to rack one’s brains.”
The word wrack, with its identical pronunciation, is related to Old English wraec “misery” and wrecan “to punish.” In the fourteenth century wrack took on the meaning “wrecked ship.” In time it came to mean “seaweed” or anything cast up upon the shore. The expression “to go to wrack and ruin” means to fall into a state of decay or destruction.
The written form “wrack one’s brains” is, therefore, incorrect.
In my view, “to go from rack to ruin” is also incorrect, but the Free Dictionary offers entries from both the McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs and the Cambridge Idioms Dictionary which seem to find either spelling acceptable.
Related Articles
No related posts.
Share
Join Over 50,000 Email Subscribers and Get a Free eBook!
- Subscribe to DailyWritingTips.com via email and you'll be able to download our ebook, "Basic English Grammar."
- You will also get all our writing tips delivered to your email inbox, completely free!
- The download link will go along with the first email (you might need to wait up to 24 hours).
26 Responses to ““Wracking” or “Racking” Your Brain?”
Have something to say?
Popular Articles
- 40 Yiddish Words You Should Know
- 10 Rules for Writing Numbers
- Vocabulary Test 1
- Passed vs Past
- Writing a Reference Letter
- Creative Writing 101
- 44 Resume Writing Tips
- Among vs. Amongst
- 6 Foreign Expressions You Should Know
- Let the Word Do the Work
- How to Format a US Business Letter
- That vs. Which
- 50 Incorrect Pronunciations To Avoid
- The Writing Process
- Inquire vs. Enquire
- 25 Pieces of Writing Software
- 12 Greek Words You Should Know
- Cannot or Can Not?
- What Does Sic Mean?
- 100 Small But Expressive Interjections
- Wether, Weather, Whether
- 34 Writing Tips To Write Better
- Yours Faithfully or Yours Sincerely?
- Latin Words and Expressions
- Grammar Test 1
- Program vs. Programme
- Writing Prompts 101
- 7 Essay Writing Tips To Ace Your Exam
- What Is Irony? (With Examples)
- 100 Beautiful and Ugly Words
- 7 Grammatical Errors That Aren't
Sounds like it’s related to the wrap/rap problem, as in wrapping things up or rapping things up. Would love to see a post addressing these 2 words as well.
So does the phrase “rack ones brains” mean to use one’s brain to the point of torture, or to stretch it thin?
Perhaps to “rack ones brains” means to drain it as in racking wine from the dregs. At least that’s how I feel, (drained) after I have “racked my brain”.
I don’t think this disqualifies the term ‘wrack one’s brains’, in fact, it may even reinforce it. It would make more sense for someone to destroy their brains thinking too hard on something, rather than stretch it.. but I suppose it’s a matter of choice of words/situation.
So I was racking my brain to figure out whether I was wracking or racking my brain, and found myself glad I didn’t wrack it.
what is the difference between nerve wracking and nerve racking ? which of these is correct?
somehow i always thought it was supposed to be “raking” ones brain, like dragging a rake across it to see what you come up with. i could never figure out why people pronounced it funny. boy was i off.
I agree with Josef, there is nothing to say “wracking one’s brain” is incorrect. In fact if you take Merriam-Webster’s word for it the definiton of the verb wrack is rack so either one would be correct.
I also agree with Josef that the term “wrack one’s brains” is not disqualified, but for dfferent reason. This is also consistent with my take on “nerve wracking”, in response to the query from skm on April 3 above. I learned to spell, and speak over sixty years ago, and in those days we always used the expression “to wrack one’s brains” rather than “to rack one’s brains”.
I consulted my most venerable dictionary which is 125 years old, and it gives a range of meanings for “rack” which principally include stretch or torment as on a rack, or engine of torture, but do not include wreck or ruin. The same dictionary has less to say about “wrack” It is a marine plant out of which kelp is made, or seaweed as is thrown ashore by waves. Just as for “rack” it can refer to thin flying clouds, but unlike “rack” it can also refer to the destruction of a ship by winds on rocks, etc, or ruin.
The dictionary also has a section dedicated to Scottish words. In the Scottish of the day, “wrack” meant “to tease or to vex”, and to me the latter meaning is undoubtedly the most apposite in the phrase “wrack my brains”
home brewers (possibly the other kind as well) ‘rack’ their beer, too. that is, they move it from one fermenter to another by means of a siphon in order to separate the nice, clear beer from the sediment that falls out during the primary fermentation. i wonder whether that ‘rack’ also comes from the torture rack. or maybe it’s a different root/word origin altogether. oed here i come…
In ‘The Finkler Question,’ you will find ‘only for every wrack of it’. Can anyone explain what the phrase means actually?
I was wondering about this same sentence in the first page of ‘The finkler question’…
Thanks for the correction. I just changed “wracking their brains” to “under pressure”. So much easier. Ha!
Either/or is as good? Not darned likely! Like all these language issues there ‘IS’ a right and a wrong way. Dictionaries can be changed and force errors into usage but they are still cracks in the structure. The wrong way creeps in and confuses things because nowadays those without the knowledge to know which is correct don’t have the gumption to admit it and follow what those who do know advise. They insist it doesn’t matter and, hey presto, another brick is taken out of the wall and the language slips a step bacwards in its precision.
Compare the English, (not modern Amlish which should be seen as different), language with others. There are more musical sounding ones like Italian, there are more elegantly vague and intuitive ones like Japanese, but there is no other language in the world which has been deverloped and structured to offer such exact expression of what is intended than English. Or there didn’t used to be, until we started to deconstruct it in the name of equality. For equality read, “it’s only fair that we all have to become equally illiterate!”
For Pete’s sake why not learn the reasons why the language is the way it is and it becomes easier to use correctly. For example why do many words end in a silent ‘e’? It’s useless nowadays isn’t it? Wrong! The ‘e’ tells you how it should be pronounced. It’s the difference between cap and cape, pin and pine. And if there is no why or wherefore to something, just learn it correctly by rote and get on with it.
There are too many whingers trying to make the weak strong by making the strong weak in all walks of life!
Finkler and Hossain
” I was wondering about this same sentence in the first page of ‘The finkler question’…
This phrase is from a complicated context.
The narrator is thinking of how everything in his life is a disaster. Seeing a woman, he imagines everything that will come in the future, ending in the usual disaster. In his imagination, as he looks at the woman walking past, he has imagined a beautiful house in which they live,
…the bed sheets billowing like clouds, the wisp of aromatic smoke winding from the chimney — only for every wrack of it — its lattice of crimson roof tiles, its gables and dormer windows, his happiness, his future — to come crashing down on him in the moment of her walking past.
Here “wrack” is a noun meaning “wreck.” The beautiful house is a wreck crashing down.
“Sounds like it’s related to the wrap/rap problem, as in wrapping things up or rapping things up. Would love to see a post addressing these 2 words as well.”
This is only a problem if you are a semi-literate idiot. One wraps things up. End of story. No question and no debate whatsoever. There is no such term as ‘rapping things up.’ Look up the verb ‘to wrap.’
Both wrack and rack are correct in the “one’s brains” phrase:
USAGE The relationship between the forms rack and wrack is complicated. The most common noun sense of rack, ‘a framework for holding and storing things,’ is always spelled rack, never wrack. The figurative senses of the verb, deriving from the type of torture in which someone is stretched on a rack, can, however, be spelled either rack or wrack: thus, : racked with guilt or : wracked with guilt;: rack your brains or : wrack your brains. In addition, the phrase : rack and ruin can also be spelled : wrack and ruin .
“This is only a problem if you are a semi-literate idiot.”
Harsh, but true.
Sherry Beth says ” to wrack one’s brain” is incorrect, but wrack also means to ruin, so couldnt a person who wracks his brain be ruining it?
Ex:I wracked (ruined) by brain on this problem.
Louise,
I’ve mellowed considerably since writing this particular post.
Jay is correct, either wrack or rack is acceptable when torturing your brains.
I’m in the process of reading Anthony Trollope’s Barchester novels. Trollope (1815-1882)) was a well-regarded novelist in his time. He had the education of a gentleman, so I believe that the language of his novels is a good example of the correct English of the 19th century. He wrote “rack and ruin,” although I cannot recall having come across anyone “racking” or “wracking” his brains in any of his books.
Nevertheless, in my opinion, you may indeed “wrack your brains.” Here is a pertinent definition from the OED of the verb wrack:
To render useless by breaking, shattering, etc.; to injure or spoil severely; to destroy.
Some of you might like to check out my new, barebones English site: http://www.BottomlineEnglish.com/
Albert, I don’t think you would like it. I’m not insisting on a lot of things I once did.
Is it better to say “I racked my brain over this problem” or “…on this problem?”
Also, in response to Maeve, it seems to me that Trollope’s education as a gentleman would likely make his novels good examples of educated gentlemen’s 19th c. English, which may or may not be “correct” in any given situation. Surely some 19th c. English peasants spoke with clarity and beauty which we would do well to emulate but which would not be considered correct, just as we occasionally find, in the midst of the carnage being wrought upon English nowadays, some wonderful, yet “incorrect” usage?
Respectfully,
Cobie
The English language is constantly changing (do we still want to communicate in Chaucer’s language, beautiful as it was then?) Wracking and racking are both acceptable in this context and it is a matter of personal choice. My personal preference is wrack but as long as the writer’s meaning is understood, what does it matter?
gahbless you for clearing this up. I really did want to jump from wreaking to wracking, but that was just an fanboy love of of the wrrrr, more than an etymologically astute usage.
racking it is boss.
The sense conveyed by “racking ones brain” is of stretching it past its limit and is the intent of the earliest usages of the phrase. The idiom references the torture device that stretched it’s victims, which was itself named for it’s obvious resemblance in function to devices for stretching out cloth, parchment or hides. The OED gives this citation which best illustrates:
1704 Swift Tale of Tub iv. 103 He had kept his Brain so long, and so violently upon the Rack, that at last it shook it self.
Originally, it was to “wrack one’s brains” – with the meaning explained above. Over time, various English speakers have altered the spelling to “rack one’s brains” (again, with the meaning explained above). My Cambridge (yes, England, not Texas) linguistics tutor once explained to me that “no native English speaker can ever make a mistake in English.” What he meant was that if an English person says “Innit?”, when in my opinion they should say “shouldn’t they?”, then that is a perfectly valuable VARIANT.
Whether or not I feel they should be taken into a secluded place and have their brains blown out is quite another matter. Language is not, and should not be considered to be, a static process. The mere fact that extremely literate, well-educated people are arguing the pros and cons of whichever spelling, is an argument for this conclusion :
Both are now acceptable.
But “nite” should be spelled “night” and “thru” should be spelled “through”. Do you really think you are writing ENGLISH, you BASTARDS?!
You rack your brain, but your nerves get wracked.