*On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 1:21 PM, Andrew Waller <waller@ucalgary.ca> wrote:
It's very, very slow for us as well.  I'm waiting with baited breath for the
content to appear on Informa.

Andrew*

====================

Sorry... I can't resist...see below...
ar
---------------------------------------

[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 that 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 means "reduced, lessened, lowered in force".
So *bated breath* refers to a state in which you almost stop breathing as a
result of some strong emotion, such as terror or awe.

Shakespeare is the first writer known to use it, in *The Merchant of Venice*,
in which Shylock says to Antonio: "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; Geoffrey Taylor humorously (and
consciously) captured it 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.

  [I'm indebted to Rainer Thonnes for telling me about this little ditty,
which appears in an anthology called *Catscript*, edited by Marie Angel.
However, it was first published in 1933 in a limited edition of Geoffrey
Taylor's poems entitled *A Dash of Garlic*.]

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

On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 1:21 PM, Andrew Waller <waller@ucalgary.ca> wrote:

> It's very, very slow for us as well.  I'm waiting with baited breath for
> the content to appear on Informa.
>
> Andrew
>
>
> Narda Tafuri wrote:
>
>  Dear folks,
>> We are continuing to have access problems with our Haworth Press titles.
>>  Is anyone else continuing to have problems getting to their online
>> articles?
>> Thank you,
>> Narda
>>
>
>
> --
> Andrew Waller
> Serials Librarian
> Collections Services
> University of Calgary Library
>
> waller@ucalgary.ca
> (403) 220-8133 voice
> (403) 284-2109 fax
>

--
Andree Rathemacher
Associate Professor
Head, Serials Unit / Electronic Resources Librarian
University Library, University of Rhode Island
15 Lippitt Road
Kingston, RI 02881-2011
work: (401) 874-5096
fax: (401) 874-4588
e-mail: andree@uri.edu
e-mail: andree.rathemacher@gmail.com
http://www.uri.edu/library/