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Grammar Girl here, I'm Manion Foggedy.

This week, I have a quick and dirty tip about the kind of rack you dry close on,

versus the kind of rack that's part of the phrase rack and ruin,

and a medium-middle about how to eliminate adverbs.

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We have two words that sound the same.

Rack with a W at the beginning and rack without a W at the beginning.

And people often don't know which one to use.

Do you rack your brain W-R-A-C-K or rack your brain R-A-C-K, for example.

Despite sounding the same, the words actually have different origins.

We have racks for storing spices and drying clothes,

but in the middle ages, the rack was an instrument of torture.

This R-A-C-K spelling comes from a word that meant to stretch.

You stretch people on a rack, or at least tortures, did.

You stretch out your clothes to dry.

And I suppose if you want to stretch the metaphor, you stretch out spices on a rack,

so you can see all those tiny little bottles at once,

instead of having to get a steplet or like I do to rifle through them in my cupboard.

The mental torment, meaning of rack, in rack your brain, and nerve-racking,

comes from the idea of the physical torment of stretching bodies on the rack.

Those are both spelled R-A-C-K without the W.

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