To give free rein, meaning “to allow more leeway,” derives from the idea of loosening one’s grip on the reins of a horse. Some people mistakenly understand the term as free reign. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Free Rein vs. Free Reign”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi. Hi, this is Donna, and I’m calling from Kerbill, Texas.
Hi, Donna. Welcome to the show.
Hey, Donna. What’s up?
Well, I’m so glad to get to talk to you guys. I love your show.
Thank you.
I am a freelance editor, and emphasis on the free most of the time.
I understand that.
And I’m very aware of words and the way people use them, and I’m always catching typos and grammatical errors and things.
And I have been a little, found a little annoying recently when I had seen a phrase that I always heard of as free reign, R-E-I-N.
And I’ve read some well-known newspaper people and others who have said free reign, R-E-I-G-N.
And I thought, no, that’s not right.
But then I got to thinking about it.
That phrase could be appropriate depending on how you want to – either phrase could be appropriate, I think.
So I wondered what your take on it is and what the actual original use was.
How is it used in a sentence?
Well, giving someone free rein to do as they wish.
And so you think that it’s the R-E-I-N, like the reins on a horse.
That’s why I’ve always used it.
But then this REIGN has kind of come up recently, and I’m thinking maybe I’m wrong.
Maybe it could be used in both ways.
Well, you’re right.
Free reign with the four-letter version, REIN, has been around for much longer, and it means what you might guess it would mean, which is to give more, what would you say, more reign to the horse.
Yeah, you let him have his head.
Yeah.
Give him his head, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, it’s one of many, many horse terms we have in the language.
And using free reign like a royal reign is a much later development, a misunderstanding really of it.
Okay.
And I would say that the R-E-I-G-N, the royal reign, is in this case almost always wrong unless you’re intentionally making a pun about royalty.
Okay.
The R-E-I-N version still is by far and away the best choice in every piece of writing I think that I’ve ever seen, except where someone was making the pun.
Right, right.
Well, since you opened the pun door, you know that story about the king who had so many wild animals in his house.
He loved to go out and gather game and bring them back to the castle, and it finally got to be such a problem that the rain was called on account of game.
Terrible.
I know.
I apologize.
And laugh puns.
That’s wonderful.
I think you want to need surgery after that one.
Thank you for that one.
I’ll add that to my store.
Okay, great.
Yeah, maybe when you’re editing, you can put that in the margins or something.
Yes, yes.
Donna, thank you so much for your call.
Well, thank you for your show, and carry on, please.
Thank you very much.
We do.
Bye-bye.
Thanks, Donna.
Bye-bye.
Two kinds of carrying on going on here.
Yeah, there’s some carrying on.
Yeah, but definitely reins like the reins of a horse.
R-E-I-N is the one that you want almost always.
Mm—
Yeah.
Or if you give somebody, you know, you have somebody on a tight rein.
Right, still R-E-I-N.
Yeah, exactly.
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