AEE 2428: Why is English Spelling So Nerve-Racking?
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This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2428. Why is English spelling so nerve-wracking? Welcome to the All Ears English podcast downloaded more than 200 million times. Are you feeling stuck with your English? We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection with your American host,

Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz, and Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA. And to get your transcripts delivered by email every week, go to allearsenglish.com forward slash subscribe.

When you're racking your brain for interesting vocabulary, do you ever see multiple ways to spell the same thing? Today, get one classic example as we answer a listener question. Listen in today.

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That's allearsenglish.com/fluenciescore. Hello, Lindsay. How are you? Great, Aubrey. We're recording today on a Friday, so I'm feeling fantastic. I love a Friday. I know. I love a Friday. Aubrey, what's something that you find nerve-wracking?

Oh, man. I have teenagers driving these days, and every time they get in their car to drive, that's very nerve-wracking for me. I have stress and anxiety worrying they're going to get an accident. My daughter hit the side of the garage the other day when she was trying to pull in. Oh, I totally get how that feels. I did that yesterday, too. Last week, I actually hit the brick wall of my driveway.

And guess what? I went and called a couple of places to get a quote. It's going to cost $1,300 to fix. Yeah. To fix the wall or the car or both? Wall's fine. It was a little tap. It was a tiny tap. Wall's fine. But it's quite expensive to fix. So yeah. The car lost that battle.

Yeah. So I understand how it feels to be nervous that there's going to be some damage. So good stuff. Yes. We got a great question about this adjective, or adverb, nerve wracking, when something is nerve wracking. And we're going to read the question here. But first, we want to make sure that you guys hit follow wherever you're listening. If you're not following the podcast, you might be missing some great episodes.

Oh my gosh, definitely hit that follow button. We've come up just this week with some really good ideas for fun episodes coming up soon. You don't want to miss a single one, so hit follow.

Aubrey, today we have a question from a listener, yeah? Exactly. I'll read it for us. Okay. Dear Lindsay, Michelle, and Aubrey, I hope you're all doing well. I wanted to take a moment to thank you for the amazing work you do on the Allers English Podcast. I have been a dedicated listener for over a year now, and I tune in almost every day. Your episodes have been incredibly helpful, engaging, and fun, and I truly appreciate all the effort you put into making learning English enjoyable.

I loved this so much. I'm excited to be able to read it. This really warms our hearts. Yeah, it really does. We love that. Oh, so good. All right. So what does maybe...

Yes. Here's the question. I also have a question that I think would be interesting for an episode. I've come across both nerve wracking with a W and for onwracking and nerve wracking without the W and was wondering if there's a difference between them. Are they both correct? Is one more common than the other? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Thank you again for everything you do. I'm looking forward to many more episodes. Best regards, Mehdi.

We love targeted specific questions, don't we Aubree? Absolutely. And this is a really interesting one because

This is the average native English speaker on the street would either not have an answer. Maybe they've noticed this, maybe they haven't. It would be, they'd be like, huh, I don't know. Interesting. It's something that, yeah, not everybody knows the answer to this. Or when they're writing, they might need to look it up, right? Really quickly or check Grammarly or something to know which one to write. So you are right there with native speakers, Mitty. Don't worry. Exactly.

Yes. And when many probably looked this up and saw this, that both are used commonly and both are considered correct. This almost makes it more difficult sometimes. You're like, wait, what? It does. Right. Right. Because you want to do it the right way. And what does everyone think is the right way? We don't really know. Right. So.

The good news is if you're like, I want to be as correct as possible, nerve wracking without the W is the original spelling. So opt for that, especially in writing. There could be some, you know, grammarians, people that are very strict about English that would still want to see it written like that in like an academic essay. But both are in the dictionary as correct.

Both are used quite commonly. I've certainly seen both even in like the news. So you couldn't see one and be like, that's a mistake. No, they're both accepted spellings. So for me, that takeaway is make sure you know who your audience is. Even if you're writing a text message, maybe your friend is an academic and you're texting them. Maybe you would use the more traditional spelling for them. Right. Right.

Exactly. This is interesting when there are misspellings that become adopted as part of the language, right? It's an accepted variant now because it's so common. People are like, we're not going to fight how people write this and how they're using it. So we'll just add them both to the dictionary and move on. Yeah. Things evolve, language evolves, language changes. That's just how it is, right? At least that's our take on it, right? Different people, different podcasts, I'm sure, have different takes on that. I'm

and the evolution of language. Absolutely. Definitely. So let's first go into what nerve wracking means. We used it at the top of the episode. It just means stressful. So it is an adjective. You might say it was really nerve wracking when my flight kept getting delayed. This is nerve wracking, especially if you need to arrive at a certain time and then it's delayed. Oh gosh. Yeah, for sure. Or, uh,

We have, let's see, tell us more, Aubrey. Anything else we need to know about the first original kind? Yeah, well, we just wanted to point out the spelling variant was likely caused because rack and rack with a W both exist in English with similar meanings. So we're going to share the meanings of these verbs. It's strange that they both exist because they're so similar. And I can definitely see why these kind of got combined in that adjective and the both spellings started to exist.

oh interesting so let's take r-a-c-k first as a verb which means to cause extreme mental or physical pain okay exactly so you might say pain racked his body after he injured his back so this would be spelled without the w r-a-c-k-e-d there's actually a torture device called the rack that would cause your body to be racked with pain oh my gosh horrible geez okay great

It's a very medieval torture device. You might see it in the Princess Bride. They're using sort of a rack to like stretch him. Awful. Terrible stuff. Horrible. Oh my gosh. Okay. So then what would be the W-R-A-C-K, the meaning there? Right. So this, it has the same meaning really as the verb wreck. Hmm.

W-R-E-C-K. This is tricky. That means ruin or destroy, but it is not used commonly. You'll see it in the dictionary and it does exist. I think they know that this is why the spelling variant has existed, has been created, but it's rare. So here's an example. The plot hole racked the audience's perception of the movie. That would mean ruined or destroyed. But I don't know that I've ever heard anyone use this in everyday conversations.

yeah honestly you know the biggest shortcut for today's episode is to know where we actually use these words right that's why I'm excited to teach the next one Aubrey which is rack one's brain um this is where we hear this right exactly what we have to worry about it's not it's not all these ancient meanings what does it mean to rack your brain right we're going to teach you two things like idioms expressions where we actually use these all the

So this means to think very hard in order to try to remember something or solve a problem, right? I was racking my brain, but couldn't come up with a solution. And in this case, you could spell it either way. Just like nerve racking, these are both spelled with either just the R-A-C-K or with a W. Yeah, and it's a good connection skill to be able to signal you've tried something

to figure something out. If you're helping someone, maybe they have a problem and you've really racked your brain to try to find a solution. You want words to signal that. Exactly, right? You don't want to give the impression that you're like, eh, I kind of tried, but this is a great way to say, I really did put in some effort. I racked my brain, but I cannot remember. Exactly. Or racked with guilt.

To be wracked with guilt. Now, this could be with that W or without, right, Aubrey? Yep, both acceptable spellings. And this is when you're experiencing intense feelings of guilt or remorse. She was wracked with guilt after she lied. Yeah, most human beings have an innate conscience in a sense, right? If we've done something wrong, we know it and we usually feel bad.

Yes, and this is a great phrase to connect if you feel remorse, if you feel regret for something you've done. And sometimes words aren't enough to say, I'm sorry, I feel badly. This is a great expression that it's bigger, right? To say, I honestly am wracked with guilt about lying to you. I'm wracked with guilt about causing that accident. Something big, right? You're trying to share how badly you feel about it. Well, that's a really good point, Aubrey. Sometimes the words have to match everything.

how big the situation is. And so if you've done something really bad, like you said, you can't just say, oh, I feel bad.

right? No, that's not big enough. And so that's how we maintain connection is by matching the size of the expression to what has actually happened. Exactly right. This is big. To be racked with guilt is big. Now, keep in mind, often things that are big like this, expressions that are big, those often tend towards sarcasm. So for example, if you don't feel badly at all, you might sarcastically say, oh, I'm racked with guilt about it.

That's a good point. Really what you mean is I don't feel bad at all. That's a good point. Be really careful because you can teeter. When you go big, you can teeter on that sarcasm, right? And then you want to be clear that you're genuine and there are other ways to do that, which we can talk about on the show another day. Absolutely. Right.

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Okay, Aubrey, role play time. Here we are discussing an altercation that you had with a mutual friend. So something has happened, right? So here we go. I'll start us out. This is really nerve wracking. She won't talk to me, but I feel like if she and I could talk about what happened, we'd be able to work it out.

I'm sure she'll be up for talking about it eventually, talking it out eventually. I get the feeling she's racked with guilt for yelling at you and just needs some time to gather herself. Maybe. I'm racking my brain to figure out what I did that made her so upset. Very realistic conversation, right? Exactly. The nice thing is when we're saying these in a roleplay and spoken conversation, they sound exactly the same. It doesn't matter. But when you're reading something, you will see them written both ways, with and without a W. Yeah.

And the other nice thing is that we don't you like I don't feel like we write these very that much. We might text someone, but I feel like it's more spoken. These are spoken expressions, don't you think? Right. Unless you're writing a novel or a news article, then you might find yourself using this. Like, sure. I'm curious. It's funny. Now that you have learned this, there's a chance that our listeners will like see it in a news article tomorrow. Maybe. Right. Because they're pretty common. Yeah.

Yes, I love that. All right. So let's go through this, Aubrey. So first, you said this is really nerve wracking. We decided to use really stressful. And then what else?

Yeah. And then you said, I have a feeling she's wracked with guilt for yelling at you. So you're saying, I think the reason she's avoiding you is she feels super guilty about what she did and needs some time. And then you said, maybe I'm wracking my brain trying to figure out what I did. So I'm really just trying hard to think.

and figure out what happened. Yeah. And I feel like this, sometimes we use it sort of this way, idiomatically, sort of like an expression that means like, I cannot think of what I possibly could have done. Right. So it's not like I am really like thinking hard. It's more like I

I didn't do anything. I have no idea what I did. I'm racking my brain to think of what it is and there's nothing. Yeah, that's an awful feeling too, right? Someone's upset and you just can't figure out what it was. Good stuff. Guys, hit the follow button right here on the show. And Aubrey, what should be our takeaway for today? Where should we leave our listeners? Yeah. So this verb rack in English is used most commonly in English with today's expression, racking one's brain, racked with guilt. These deal with intense emotions.

And of course, sharing about intense emotions is one of the best ways to connect in English. If you are racked with guilt about someone, admit that to someone you're close to, right? This could really be a way to create a bond between you. Yeah, for sure. I mean, connection happens when we express ourselves accurately and precisely. And we do need the words that level that up to the right level, right? To how bad we feel about something. And so this is one of the resources to do that.

All right. Yes. And when it comes to this weird spelling, both exist. Both are accepted. You can use either. You could use the original spelling to be sure that you're always 100% correct and leave off the W. Yeah. So don't lose any sleep over it, right? No, absolutely. That's the point. All right. Good stuff. Okay, Aubrey, we'll see you in the next episode. Take care. See you next time. Bye. Bye. Bye.

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