Shakespeare takes the bate

QUESTION What is the origin of the phrase ‘bated breath’, which is commonly misspelled as ‘baited’?

THE earliest known use of the phrase is in Shakespeare’s 1596 The Merchant Of Venice: ‘Should I not say “Hath a dog money? Is it possible a cur can lend three thousand ducats?”

‘Or shall I bend low and in a bondman’s key, with bated breath and whispering humbleness, say this; “Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last... another time you call’d me dog; and for these courtesies I’ll lend you thus much moneys?” ’

Bated here is a contraction of abated through aphesis, the gradual loss of an unstressed vowel. Another example is the loss of an ‘e’ from esquire to form squire.

Abated means ‘ to reduce in amount’. So bated breath refers to a state in which you stop breathing in anticipation.

The confusion with ‘baited’ is in part simply that they sound the same. It is often misspelled. W. C. Fields (1880-1946) the American wit, used baited in a play on words: ‘The clever cat eats cheese and breathes down rat holes with baited breath.’

Jim French, St Ives, Cambs.

QUESTION Every Breath You Take is played at weddings, yet appears to be a song about a stalker. What other songs have been misconstrued?

THE former BBC Radio Tees had a Sunday request show, and each Father’s Day there were requests for O mio

Babbino Caro (O My Beloved Father) by Puccini.

But the girl in the song is begging her dad to approve of her boyfriend; if he does not, she will drown herself.

The Italian lyrics, fondly listened to, conclude in translation: ‘I am anguished and tormented!/Oh God, I’d want to die!/Papa, have pity, have pity.’ James Swales, Stockton-on-Tees.