According to The Free Dictionary, a malapropism is “the unintentional misuse of a word by confusion with one of similar sound.” One malapropism that I’ve been seeing a lot lately is “take the reigns”. Even that multimillion-dollar blockbuster, Iron Man, included this particular gaffe:
An image from the Iron Man movie which was released in 2008.
This particular malapropism is actually pretty easy to understand. The verb “to reign” means to be the leader of something, whether a company or a kingdom, and make decisions affecting the future of that institution. However, the correct term is “take the reins”. This particular word-picture is the idea of a horse that is directed through the use of reins: thin strips of leather attached to a bit in the horse’s mouth that, when pulled to one side or the other, direct the horse to go a certain direction.
Image courtesy of NewRider.com
Now you know! Ditch that unnecessary “g”, and choose to take the reins on using this phrase correctly!
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could you increase the amount of your posts, i would like to read them more often.
Thank you! I have a few posts I’m currently writing, and I’ll be putting them up soon.