DailyWritingTips

“Wracking” or “Racking” Your Brain?

background image 140

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.

Stop making those embarrassing mistakes! Subscribe to Daily Writing Tips today!

You will improve your English in only 5 minutes per day, guaranteed!

Each newsletter contains a writing tip, word of the day, and exercise!

You'll also get three bonus ebooks completely free!

38 thoughts on ““Wracking” or “Racking” Your Brain?”

  1. 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.

  2. So does the phrase “rack ones brains” mean to use one’s brain to the point of torture, or to stretch it thin?

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. 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”

  7. 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…

  8. In ‘The Finkler Question,’ you will find ‘only for every wrack of it’. Can anyone explain what the phrase means actually?

  9. 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!

  10. 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.

  11. “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.’

  12. 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 .

  13. 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.

  14. 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: Bottom Line English
    Albert, I don’t think you would like it. I’m not insisting on a lot of things I once did. 🙂

  15. 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

  16. 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?

  17. 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.

  18. 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.

  19. 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?!

  20. Val, you ask “do we still want to communicate in Chaucer’s language?”

    Could I make two comments. Firstly Chaucer and his contemporaries seem to have had no trouble communicating with each other, so we should have no problem using it either (although it might need a bit of updating on computers and similar things!).

    Secondly, the reason that we have so much trouble nowdays appreciating Chaucer (and even Shakespeare) is that the language has been changed since their day. If English had been carved in stone then we would have no more difficulty reading them than reading contemporary material. And for the future: will readers in a couple of hundred years (assuming such things exist) be able to appreciate our beutifully crafted sentences?

  21. Hey, I have an idea you English Idiots.

    They both mean the same thing!

    The English language is one of the easiest, and least brain intensive on the planet. Yet you fools can’t get over stuff like this.

    Go get a F**king dictionary.

  22. Let’s face it, they’re both just idioms to mean that you can’t think of anything right now, with a little exaggeration to show that you tried really hard but really can’t remember. Nobody actually damaged or wrecked their brain. Both a metaphorical.

    The idea that one is ‘correct’ and the other is ‘incorrect’ IMO speaks more to the Englishman’s penchant for enforcement, and people who think pointing out correct usage where ambiguity exists is a valuable contribution to a conversation go straight on to my idiot list.

    So Albert, I learnt a lot in the past by writing things down. Does that mean that ‘I learned by wrote?’

  23. Lots of blood spilled over this issue of proper English, I see.

    I read through these replies fast (admittedly), so I may have missed a previous suggestion to consult the OED for answers that are historically accurate. But in case no one mentioned it before, this is always the best way to begin, short of having had a smattering of Old English and Middle English somewhere along one’s meandering way toward attaining a thorough education. Whatever that might be.

    Seems to me people conflate historical accuracy, so far as it might be ascertained, with “correctness” in reference to the language as it is used. The two are separate issues (or questions). Sherry Beth Connot (who posed the original question) seemed to want to know something about both–and she’s perfectly reasonable to ask. Maeve’s reply seems to me to have answered nicely, even to the extent of taking a stand for historical accuracy (well done, good and faithful servant ;-), while also explaining things fairly completely (well done twice!).

    To anyone trying to sort out the usage (errors) surrounding “rack” and “wrack,” it will now be obvious that there are at least two schools–the Moral School of Correct English and the Laissez-Faire School of Ringing the Changes of English. But if you’re like me, you don’t like getting religion confused with knowledge, and that appears to be what most of the Moralists and the Laissez-Faire Folk insist on doing.

    Language change isn’t a moral issue, or it shouldn’t be (leave that to the French–they do it better, and meaner). But neither is language (nor should it be) a have-at-you free for all. Conventions are useful, in their place, and they are meaningful, and some of us would simply like to understand them! There really ought to be a school that recognizes the legitimacy of knowing how things came to be as they are, and then offers reasonable suggestions for usage, minus all the moralistic claptrap and minus, too, the anarchic celebration (both of which seem mere pointless projections of unstated assumptions and attitudes that are best kept private, for that is all they are, actually – personal, having nothing to do with the subject of how and why English has changed).

    Maeve has my vote for first head of this school–let us call it the School of Reason and English. For she showed exemplary leadership when she answered Sherry Beth as she did, and exemplary method when (following that answer) she took a reasonable stand. It may be accounted a “conservative” stand, but only by people who insist on division. Those who appreciate thoughtfulness in using English will appreciate, too, that there is a time and a place for mindfully supporting conventional usage of the language.

  24. I am coming to the party rather late. I stumbled, or rather, Googled upon this post, while researching whether to write, “wracked my brain” or “racked my brain.”

    As I perused the responses, I noted that Peter presented himself as an authority on proper English. Yet he apparently doesn’t know the difference between its (possessive) and it’s (contraction).

  25. @Paige – HAHAHAHA… “It’s vs. Its” is an issue of *style*; originally the primary distinction made between these in writing (when “it” had come into use) was the following: “Its” was the contraction (compare “yours”, “thiers”, etc.) and “it’s” wast he possessive. “It’s” is MORE consistent from a number of principles and “its” obviously fits the “yours/theirs/etc.” type pattern more well than “it’s”; later correcti-ists, pedants, a few authorities saying “why not?”, and faux-grammary ninnies, and (since) followers (like yourself) decided the reverse should be “true” and, apparently, a matter to judge whether someone has authority in the language. HAHAHAHA I take people who tend to re-reverse back to the original to gain a degree more of consistency to show a mite more intelligence than ye average critiqu-[y]ser. ;)~

    Here’s the simple deal: matters of style show no bearing on actual intelligence, competence, or authority in a language; authorities, in fact, and literate folk tend mo’ violate the “rules” than others, sense for them the guiding principle is clarity and communication as most effective, while the “rules” are for those who need safety-wheels to insure they *might* half-succeed in being clear and communicating. I half guess you think the rules are solid rather than arbitrary guidelines for those who aren’t linguists (people who know and can compare several languages) given that you think there is actually a difference between those two arbitrary badly-representative symbols of difference that are only useful so long as people observe (and remember) those [taught] “differences.”

    I note with sadness that half the crowd who talks of convention knows not the history nor spirit behind such conventions, the reasons or the proper facts: they just support because, ‘damn it, we’re on the downgrade!’ They take it for a sign when actually the “wrong” people were making-up and enforcing these conventions upon poor elementary students as “grammar” (though they’re not), largely in only the last few decades. Hint: “more fun” is NOT grammatical as opposed to “funner”, which is the older form long in use till stomped out by the same kind of “mind” that attempted to force everyone to abandon “dug” for “digged”; fights over terminal prepositions are style matter half-supported by some niche enclaves of English usage that everyone else has ignored since the controversy was even made one; “ain’t” is a word, and has been for many years: the “rule” and “clarity” supposed by “don’t use double negatives” contrasts not only the usage in every other language on the planet…but also the entire history of English (actual authorities call this one of the faux-rules of a “silver/guilded” age of English proscriptivism); the overcorrections common in many rules illustrative how awful “convention” has been MIS-taught, e.g. illustrative for many minds being “The stalker and I were spoken to” when it’s “The stalker and me”, technically, if you want proper objective-subjective division, whereas “Sheela and me walked to the store” is, in fact, *correct* given psychology, moods, and “pointer” indications inherenet in all of English history since the function is to DRAW ATTENTION to the subjects, which “me” forces more than “I”, though if that is not the intention THEN it is wrong (basically the rule against this by “grammar” teachers has always been wrong, since they’ve never been informed by a proper linguist of the distinction, and they often have sat around over-correcting themselves): hell, the silver-age went about trying to correct the King James, for heaven’s…to heaven’s horror.

  26. “Wrack your brain” is not incorrect.

    The way it is used depicts a e.g. distortion of a frame or framework.

    A picture frame out of square is “wracked”, e.g.

    Not that it is unable to be brought back to square (90 degree corners).

    My ex wife “wracks my brain” for sure; some of the stuff she comes up with… her projection, anti-logical beliefs and viewpoints. She is so skilled at applying them so abusively too… (it is hard to catch my breath sometimes. lol)

    A poem: I know I’m sane, though she wracks my brain…

  27. I was reading an article on the BBC News
    website and read this:
    “The world’s newest nation has been wracked by civil war, which has seen ethnic cleansing and numerous atrocities, since 2013.”

    The spelling of the word ‘wracked’ caught my attention. I looked up the spelling and read the etymology. My question is: Do you think Brits would favor ‘wracked’ while Americans may tend to spell it ‘racked’?

  28. @John Bulsterbaum
    I think “it is” as in “it’s” (contraction) “theirs” and not “thiers” – as wrongly spelt by you and I can bet my life on it that “it’s” or “it is” wrong. “It’s” or “it is” not groovy enough to hang my hat on.

    That dog over there; look at “its” short legs (possessive) and not “it’s” legs. Look at “it is” short legs does not sound right and you can tell “it’s” or “it is” wrong.

    I note you spelt or spelled (?) “theirs” correct “on” the fourth line of the first paragraph. I take it that your spelling of “thiers” “on” the third line of the same paragraph is a typo, otherwise one would think you’re All Over The Place like CBBC comedy. “It’s” or “it is” not all about “maters of style” but “consistency” as it was instilled into me in some back waters of an African jungle village during my primary school days.

    It is “consistency”, that is why I used “on” in both the first and second lines of my third paragraph. “It’s” or “it is” aesthetic to the eyes like Adonis or Nefertiti. Some people might choose to use “in” instead. Now over to the purists, which is the correct one, “on” or “in”? Some people might even choose to use “at”, mmm… Is this raw enough power (as in rock guitar) to burn my speakers? Nah. If you don’t believe me ask Slash or Steve Stevens.

    Something that has crept into usage is the use of “your” as in “your going to the market”. This, definitely, is not funky enough to make Shoogie to wanna boogie. The correct use is “you’re” (contraction) or “you are” going to the market. “Your” is for “your mother”, “your pen”, “your house”, “your car” or “your cat”. Alternatively, the cat can be “yours” not “your’s”.

  29. yeesh. I’m with the “nonono, it’s not RACKED, it’s WRACKED” group.
    NO, Priscilla. Et al.

    what gets ‘racked’? legs of lamb.
    what IS a rack? great…umm…mammarys.

    when you ‘rack out’ you hit the hay, go to sleep,*not* go into a
    Robbie the Robot mental imbalance due to a conflict, being overwhelmed, dumbstruck by, for instance, listening to a presidential pronouncement.

    it’s WRACK, not RACK, people. At least when you’re talking
    about cerebral activity.
    Just ignore those what say it’s not, eh?

    Cripes. At LEAST I read some very inneresting commentary here.
    S’even more fun than discussing Politics!

    So, THANK YOU, y’all. I wanna see mo’ o dat.

  30. Ah! Perhaps an eppie fanny.

    Perhaps…BOTH are keerect. BUT…it’s the Usage and Intent and Connotation that differ. Ahem. It’s subject- / target-dependent.

    when it’s someone Else making mincemeat out of your cerebellum, it’s ‘rack’.
    when it’s yourSELF stretching your intra-neuronal synapses, it’s
    ‘wrack’.

    maybe….

Leave a Comment