I swear I'm going to beat my head against the wall. I've seen the same mistake twice in the past 12 hours. Once it was in a blog, and most of those are informal, so it doesn't count as much. But last night it was in a published novel (Collins' the Lusitania Murders, to be specific).

Both were talking about people being stopped from doing what they wished; they were "reigning in" their ambitions.

Guys, the phrase is "rein in," okay. Like pulling on the reins of a horse to get him to slow down. "Reign" is the period in which a monarch rules or a verb describing what the monarch does ("The king reigns over his subjects"). "Reigning in" not only is incorrect, but it makes no sense!

This isn't the first time I've seen the two confused. Is nothing proofread any longer, and if it is, do the proofreaders actually have knowledge of the English language?

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 8:56:00 AM

Comments:

Is the novel fairly recent? I'd love to send them a goof card from the Society for the Preservation of English Language and Literature (SPELL) (www.spellorg.com).
Caran

# posted by  Anonymous : 12:12:00 AM

 

It's Max Allan Collins' The Lusitania Murders.

# posted by  Linda : 10:10:00 PM

 

Uh, sorry. Copyright is 2002.

# posted by  Linda : 10:12:00 PM

 

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