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“Tie Over” vs. “Tide Over”

March 5, 2012

It’s fitting that I use “tie/tide over” for the first vocabulary-related post. Over the years I have missaid this phrase more times than I can imagine. The nonsensical part is that though I was aware I wasn’t absolutely sure what the correct phrase was, I kept blundering along anyway, never looking it up.

But in the spirit of taking responsibility for my speech, last year I finally found out for certain.

But before I reveal, take a guess. Is the correct phrase “tie (someone) over” or “tide (someone) over”? As in “hey little screamer, here are some crackers to tie/tide you over ’til dinner”. Do you know?

According to my sources It’s TIDE (someone) over. Here’s how Oxford Dictionaries puts it:

It’s easy to see how this phrase fell into such confusion. With “tied” being a homonym of “tide”, together with the frequency in which we use this phrase in the past tense, it was bound to get garbled. But now, friends, no need to be a garbler. It’s tide.

So.

Am I the only who didn’t know for sure? And what other phrases/words do you wonder about?

2 Comments

Comments

  1. Samantha says

    March 14, 2012 at 11:47 am

    Here’s one I just looked up: “to a tee” versus “to a T” 🙂

    Reply
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Hi! I'm amber. And these are conversations on life, humanity, and other curiosities borne of my wandering mind and everyday life.
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