Reign, Rein, or Rain?

In a newsletter distributed to more than 20,000 subscribers,a blurb began: “Searching for a way to reign in a federal deficit that has ballooned to $1.4 trillion, the Obama administration on Monday announced a proposal to freeze the pay of 2.1 million federal employees through 2012.”

I’m not a federal employee so the thought of a frozen paycheck isn’t what sent me over the top. This is the second time in less than a month where I’ve come across confusion over reign, rein, and rain (we learned about homophones in fourth grade). In 1970 (yes, 40 years ago), Fred Gwynne wrote The King Who Rained which is still, by far, the most fun way to figure out the correct usage for words that sound alike but have different meanings. There’s even a short YouTube video if you’re a visual learner.

Here’s a gentle reminder on what word works where:

·          A queen reigns over her subjects, often with a royal wave.

·          A rider reins in his horse or a family reins in spending.

·          Eliza Doolittle sings, “The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.”

My guess is that most folks use the correct spelling for the stuff that falls from the sky.  It’s trying to be fancy that gets us in trouble with the other two.  In the case of the newsletter, the editor would have been better off thinking about a cowboy (rein) instead of royalty (reign).  Most of those 20,000 readers probably didn’t even notice the error. This cranky old English teacher did.