Hold Your Peace vs. Hold Your Piece

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Dave Cipollone from Pittsburgh, PA calling.

Hi, Dave. Welcome to the show.

Hi, Dave.

I was watching a TV show and someone said, whenever you say, you know, whenever the reverend says, hold your peace, he said it was P-I-E-C-E.

So I looked it up and I couldn’t really tell you what it was.

So I was reading a book by Geraldine Brooks. His book was called March, and it was about the guy from Little Women.

And on page 254, she was talking to a surgeon, and she said, I didn’t know what to say, so I held my peace, P-E-A-C-E.

Now, five pages later, her husband, who was very sick, was talking about going back into war, into the Civil War.

And she said, basically, if he did that, I would hold my peace again, P-I-E-C-E.

So I’m thinking, well, which is it? You know, like it looked like in the in the book March by Geraldine Brooks, it was it was the same context.

She was saying the same thing, but it was P-I-E-C-E versus P-E-A-C-E.

So I was like, which is which is it?

Oh, wow. That’s really interesting.

Just to clarify, in terms of the thing that they say at weddings, you know, if anybody knows why these two should not be joined together, speak now or forever hold your peace, that is P-E-A-C-E.

Yeah, it’s peace with the sense of an absence of noise or stillness or quiet.

For hundreds of years, the expression hold your peace or keep your peace or have your peace has meant to remain silent or just to maintain that stillness.

And people get confused about that because there’s also the entirely separate idiom of say your peace, you know, state your peace of a discussion.

And the idea there is sort of like if the discussion is a pie, you get to say your piece of it.

It’s one part of the conversation.

And then, you know, once you’re finished saying it, then you say, I’ve said my piece.

So two different pieces there.

Okay.

Thanks.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

Now you will have peace of mind, right?

Yeah.

I’ll have peace of mind.

Yeah.

Very nice.

Okay.

Thank you for this good.

Thank you for this kind word.

Bye-bye.

Take care, Dave.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Thank you.

Well, if you’re struggling with a language question, we can probably provide you peace of mind.

Call us 877-929-9673 or send the question and email to words@waywordradio.org.