Beta-Bitching #3: Breathe a Little Breath

Welcome to Beta-Bitching, this time bitching at you from overseas—in ‘Murrica!  Tying up loose ends before my vacation Stateside left me with no time for a blog… So, now that I have time to relax, it’s time to get to work!  Oh, irony, you make life so bittersweet…

Let’s talk about the difference between breath and breathe, because I see the wrong one used a LOT. 

Most notably, the latter has an e on the end (in case you’re really not the observant sort…).  That one little e makes a big difference.

 breath – noun, pronounced breth

            She took a deep breath.

            The sunset took his breath away.

            He had to catch his breath.

            Her breaths were short and labored.

 
 breathe – verb, pronounced breethe

            She couldn’t breathe.

            They all breathed sighs of relief.

            He breathes easily. – note that the e at the end doesn’t go away… otherwise, it would become breaths and mean something completely different.

           
 

Now a little note on the word breathing:  breathing can function as several things: as a verbal noun or present participle (or gerund) which can act as an adjective or multi-part noun.  To be honest, right now I’m not sure if I can tell which is which, and it’s not important to know unless you’re taking advanced English or linguistics classes.  Just as long as you’re using it properly!

            Breathing is simple; I do it all the time.

          She listened for his breathing.

            The heavy breathing on the line ceased.

      At least he is breathing.

            She checked to see if they were breathing.

        Breathing hard, she rounded the corner.

        His hard-breathing foe pelted after him.                               

 

And don’t let me catch you spelling it as breatheing!  That e gets dropped when you conjugate. 

 

Breathed isn’t as flexible.  (Of course not… why would English make things easy?)  Breathed (breethd) is the past tense of to breathe (breethe), in the same way that breathes (breethz) is its present tense.    

Breath (breth), being a noun, doesn’t have a past tense, so you usually don’t use breathed (brethd) alone, but it can be paired with an adverb to form an adjective phrase: 

       His even-breathed enemy silently mocked him.

      She was short breathed at the end of her sprint.

 

That covers it all, right? 

Well, not quite, because breath also has a homophone: breadth, the descriptor of how broad something is.  (You can probably see that broad and breadth have the same root.)  Here’s how they compare:

          I took a deep breath.

            He measured the box’s width and breadth.

            Its breadth was so impressive, he lost his breath. (Oh, my!)

           

Okay, I hope I managed to think of everything, ‘cause I’m jetlagged as hell at this point!  Call me on it if you think I’ve missed something!  Until next time, when I’ll be back to being pissy about grammar instead of just tired and loopy.

Got a homophone pair or trio that always gets you down? Tell me about it! I plan on featuring reader suggestions every other blog.

Beta-Bitching #2 - All Them ''There's'' <<  >> Beta-Bitching #4: Two ''To's'' Too Many