What's the expression?

[Spooner]

"I await with baited breath"

abaded breath?
baded breath?


beuller?

 

[lokiju]

"I await your answer with baited breath"

 

[moshquerade]

i believe it's "bated breath". it means holding your breath.

 

[FoBoT]

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-bai1.htm

<Q> From Steve Gearhart: ?Where does the term baited breath come from, as in: ?I am waiting with baited breath for your answer???

<A> The correct spelling is actually bated breath but it?s so common these days to see it written as baited breath that there?s every chance it will soon become the usual form, to the disgust of conservative speakers and the confusion of dictionary writers. Examples in newspapers and magazines are legion; this one appeared in the Daily Mirror on 12 April 2003: ?She hasn?t responded yet but Michael is waiting with baited breath?.

It?s easy to mock, but there?s a real problem here. Bated and baited sound the same and we no longer use bated (let alone the verb to bate), outside this one set phrase, which has become an idiom. Confusion is almost inevitable. Bated here is a contraction of abated through loss of the unstressed first vowel (a process called aphesis); it has the meaning ?reduced, lessened, lowered in force?. So bated breath refers to a state in which you almost stop breathing through terror, awe, extreme anticipation, or anxiety.

Shakespeare is the first writer known to use it, in The Merchant of Venice: ?Shall I bend low and, in a bondman?s key, / With bated breath and whisp?ring humbleness, / Say this ...?. Nearly three centuries later, Mark Twain employed it in Tom Sawyer: ?Every eye fixed itself upon him; with parted lips and bated breath the audience hung upon his words, taking no note of time, rapt in the ghastly fascinations of the tale?.

For those who know the older spelling or who stop to consider the matter, baited breath evokes an incongruous image, which Geoffrey Taylor humorously (and consciously) captured in verse in his poem Cruel Clever Cat:

Sally, having swallowed cheese,
Directs down holes the scented breeze,
Enticing thus with baited breath
Nice mice to an untimely death.

 

[Spooner]

shweet. thanks peeps

 

[SmoochyTX]

Originally posted by: FoBoT
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-bai1.htm

<Q> From Steve Gearhart: ?Where does the term baited breath come from, as in: ?I am waiting with baited breath for your answer???

<A> The correct spelling is actually bated breath but it?s so common these days to see it written as baited breath that there?s every chance it will soon become the usual form, to the disgust of conservative speakers and the confusion of dictionary writers. Examples in newspapers and magazines are legion; this one appeared in the Daily Mirror on 12 April 2003: ?She hasn?t responded yet but Michael is waiting with baited breath?.

It?s easy to mock, but there?s a real problem here. Bated and baited sound the same and we no longer use bated (let alone the verb to bate), outside this one set phrase, which has become an idiom. Confusion is almost inevitable. Bated here is a contraction of abated through loss of the unstressed first vowel (a process called aphesis); it has the meaning ?reduced, lessened, lowered in force?. So bated breath refers to a state in which you almost stop breathing through terror, awe, extreme anticipation, or anxiety.

Shakespeare is the first writer known to use it, in The Merchant of Venice: ?Shall I bend low and, in a bondman?s key, / With bated breath and whisp?ring humbleness, / Say this ...?. Nearly three centuries later, Mark Twain employed it in Tom Sawyer: ?Every eye fixed itself upon him; with parted lips and bated breath the audience hung upon his words, taking no note of time, rapt in the ghastly fascinations of the tale?.

For those who know the older spelling or who stop to consider the matter, baited breath evokes an incongruous image, which Geoffrey Taylor humorously (and consciously) captured in verse in his poem Cruel Clever Cat:

Sally, having swallowed cheese,
Directs down holes the scented breeze,
Enticing thus with baited breath
Nice mice to an untimely death.

What a load of BS. Just because so many people fvck the word up they'll accept the misspelled word.

And no. I'm not a conservative speaker or a dictionary writer. LOL

 

[moshquerade]

Originally posted by: SmoochyTX

Originally posted by: FoBoT
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-bai1.htm

<Q> From Steve Gearhart: ?Where does the term baited breath come from, as in: ?I am waiting with baited breath for your answer???

<A> The correct spelling is actually bated breath but it?s so common these days to see it written as baited breath that there?s every chance it will soon become the usual form, to the disgust of conservative speakers and the confusion of dictionary writers. Examples in newspapers and magazines are legion; this one appeared in the Daily Mirror on 12 April 2003: ?She hasn?t responded yet but Michael is waiting with baited breath?.

It?s easy to mock, but there?s a real problem here. Bated and baited sound the same and we no longer use bated (let alone the verb to bate), outside this one set phrase, which has become an idiom. Confusion is almost inevitable. Bated here is a contraction of abated through loss of the unstressed first vowel (a process called aphesis); it has the meaning ?reduced, lessened, lowered in force?. So bated breath refers to a state in which you almost stop breathing through terror, awe, extreme anticipation, or anxiety.

Shakespeare is the first writer known to use it, in The Merchant of Venice: ?Shall I bend low and, in a bondman?s key, / With bated breath and whisp?ring humbleness, / Say this ...?. Nearly three centuries later, Mark Twain employed it in Tom Sawyer: ?Every eye fixed itself upon him; with parted lips and bated breath the audience hung upon his words, taking no note of time, rapt in the ghastly fascinations of the tale?.

For those who know the older spelling or who stop to consider the matter, baited breath evokes an incongruous image, which Geoffrey Taylor humorously (and consciously) captured in verse in his poem Cruel Clever Cat:

Sally, having swallowed cheese,
Directs down holes the scented breeze,
Enticing thus with baited breath
Nice mice to an untimely death.

What a load of BS. Just because so many people fvck the word up they'll accept the misspelled word.

And no. I'm not a conservative speaker or a dictionary writer. LOL

yeh, you'll even find where "could care less" is acceptable now cause it's used so much although it doesn't make sense.