#18328
02/05/2001 12:11 AM
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I have seen it written in both ways, though perhaps more often as "nerve-racking". Are they both correct? 
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#18329
02/05/2001 4:06 AM
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1973 Times 30 June "My own King Charles's head is the use of ‘nerve-wracking’ for ‘nerve-racking’."
[and what does the phrase 'my own KC's head' imply?]
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#18330
02/05/2001 4:25 AM
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It has to be "nerve-racking" - it stretches your nerves.
And both King Charles lost their heads, but in different ways. Don't know what the reference might be here.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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#18331
02/05/2001 4:38 AM
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but wracking is just a variant of wrecking, so there is certainly justification for 'nerve-wracking' -- it just offends the purists. 
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#18332
02/05/2001 7:28 PM
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I have always thought that nerve-wracking was correct. One is wracked with pain, or am I wrong on that one, too?
(w)racking my brain for the answer...
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#18333
02/05/2001 10:50 PM
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My Webster`s has it listed both ways but no explanation as to why.
In a pinch you can always use annoying.
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#18334
02/05/2001 11:26 PM
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Apparently I have been wrong all my life:
The American Heritage® Book of English Usage.
A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English. 1996.
3. Word Choice: New Uses, Common Confusion, and Constraints
§ 251. rack / wrack
If you are racked with doubt about this pair, you are not alone. There are seven words spelled rack in English. Two of these are variants of words spelled wrack. The rack we are immediately concerned with is familiar as a frame for holding or displaying things: a hat rack. This rack also refers to an implement of torture, consisting of a frame on which the body is stretched. From this has come the figurative meaning “pain or torment.” In addition, rack can function as a verb, which means “to torture on a rack” and more commonly “to cause physical or mental suffering to,” as in For weeks after the accident he was racked with pain. It is the verb that gives us torment today. It often appears in the compound nerve-racking and in the idiom rack one’s brains. 1
On to wrack, of which, we noted, there are two. One means “destruction or ruin” and is familiar in the phrase wrack and ruin. The second wrack refers to wreckage cast ashore, but it is also a verb meaning “to cause the ruin of, wreck.” Thus a business can be wracked by stiff competition. Both of these wrack s have rack as an acceptable spelling variant, so a business can also be racked by competition, and the reader can never be sure if the business is in a state of metaphorical torment or if it is ruined—and in truth it may be both. 2
You can see how easy it is to mix these words up. If you want to avoid making a wreck of things, remember that the word rack, synonymous with pain, does not normally have wrack as a variant.
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#18335
02/06/2001 3:36 AM
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King Charles' head is a reference from David Copperfield. Whenever Mr. Dick, one of the characters, tried to write anything sooner or later he would find himself mentioning King Charles the First's head, however hard he tried not to.
"King Charles's head" is used by some people to mean an obsession or distracting idea that continually interferes with whatever you're supposed to be doing.
Bingley
Bingley
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#18336
02/06/2001 10:41 AM
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There are two other such pairs: to w(h)ile away the time, to w(h)et one's appetite. In both cases both spellings are eminently reasonable and justifiable. I recently tracked them both through the OED but forget what I found: I _think_ it was that we originally whiled and whetted. I would insist that now both are correct: this (w)rack is another good example of that.
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#18337
02/06/2001 1:06 PM
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"King Charles's head" is used by some people to mean an obsession or distracting idea that continually interferes with whatever you're supposed to be doingThese are fascinating examples - thanks to all posters on this thread. Mr B's comment further suggests to me an alternative to Ayleurs - we could be Charlies!
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#18338
02/06/2001 2:59 PM
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bingley,
so in the citation "My own King Charles's head is the use of ‘nerve-wracking’ for ‘nerve-racking’.", the sense is that the use of nerve-wracking is a distraction non unlike a 'pet peeve'?
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#18339
02/06/2001 3:12 PM
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"My own King Charles's head is the use of ‘nerve-wracking’ for ‘nerve-racking’.", the sense is that the use of nerve-wracking is a distraction not unlike a 'pet peeve'?
Does this mean I don't have to say that the phrase pet peeve is one of my pet peeves?
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#18340
02/06/2001 8:42 PM
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>Mr B's comment further suggests to me an alternative to Ayleurs - we could be Charlies!
...and Anu then would be - er - the Charlies' Angel?
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#18341
02/07/2001 11:10 AM
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Pooh-Bah
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>Mr B's comment further suggests to me an alternative to Ayleurs - we could be Charlies! ...and Anu then would be - er - the Charlies' Angel? and you and I, Marty would be a "right pair of Charlies"
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#18342
02/07/2001 9:28 PM
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Anu the Angel, eh? Hmm... that would validate Father Steve's view of Anu as a non-corporeal being...
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#18343
02/07/2001 11:22 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 866
old hand
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old hand
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re: "My own King Charles's head"
Could this not be a brand name for a nautical toilet? Rather an elaborate device I'd imagine ;-)
stales
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#18344
02/08/2001 12:28 PM
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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"My own King Charles's head"
Could this not be a brand name for a nautical toilet? Rather an elaborate device I'd imagine
But not a very useful one, probably. a) It would demand the right to tax the "salts"; b) It would think that it was divine in it's own right; c) It would certainly refuse to let you try it! 
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#18345
02/08/2001 6:57 PM
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Posts: 1,773
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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"My own King Charles's head"
"Could this not be a brand name for a nautical toilet?"
A pretty good name, but wouldn't "King John's" be a better name for a throne?
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