{"id":8934,"date":"2020-10-23T07:54:29","date_gmt":"2020-10-23T07:54:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/?p=8934"},"modified":"2022-09-18T14:26:43","modified_gmt":"2022-09-18T14:26:43","slug":"cringy-vs-cringey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/cringy-vs-cringey\/","title":{"rendered":"Cringy VS Cringey: Ultimate Grudge Match of Embarrassment"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>img#mv-trellis-img-1::before{padding-top:150%; }img#mv-trellis-img-1{display:block;}<\/style><p>One of the things that makes English such a great language is how versatile it is.<\/p>\n<p>As an example, it&rsquo;s possible to turn many nouns or verbs into adjectives by adding a -y on the end.<\/p>\n<p>Things get complicated when the word ends in an &ldquo;e,&rdquo; <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/comma-before-though\/\">though<\/a><\/strong>. As an example of which, people often ask if &ldquo;cringey&rdquo; or &ldquo;cringy&rdquo; is correct.<\/p>\n<p>Let&rsquo;s find out!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Is &ldquo;cringy&rdquo; or &ldquo;cringey&rdquo; the correct spelling?<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Technically, when you form adjectives by adding a &ldquo;y&rdquo; to the end of a noun or verb, you are supposed to drop the &ldquo;e&rdquo; at the end of the word. However, perhaps because &ldquo;cring&rdquo; looks like it should be pronounced &ldquo;king,&rdquo; this word is more frequently spelled as &ldquo;cringey,&rdquo; and &ldquo;cringey&rdquo; is the version most commonly listed in dictionaries. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The final verdict is that both spellings are acceptable, although &ldquo;cringey&rdquo; is less likely to get flagged as misspelled in formal writing like a school paper.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>&nbsp;<\/h2>\n<h2>Rules for turning words into adjectives<\/h2>\n<p>One way to turn English words into adjectives is to append a &ldquo;y&rdquo; to the end of them.<\/p>\n<p>Is there ice on the path? The path can be <strong>icy<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Is the pond hard to see through? Let&rsquo;s turn &ldquo;murk&rdquo; into &ldquo;murky&rdquo;!<\/p>\n<p>And so on.<\/p>\n<p>As seen from our first example here, the rule for words that end in &ldquo;e&rdquo; is that you drop the &ldquo;e&rdquo; before you add the &ldquo;y.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>That means &ldquo;ice&rdquo; becomes &ldquo;icy,&rdquo; <a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/comma-before-and\/\">and<\/a>, at least in theory, &ldquo;cringe&rdquo; becomes &ldquo;cringy.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The reality, though, is not that simple.<\/p>\n<h2>&nbsp;<\/h2>\n<h2>Why &ldquo;cringy&rdquo; looks wrong<\/h2>\n<p>The problem with English is that the same combination of letters can make different sounds in different contexts.<\/p>\n<p>That means, although &ldquo;cringy&rdquo; is technically the way you turn &ldquo;cringe&rdquo; into an adjective, some people will say it just doesn&rsquo;t look right.<\/p>\n<p>When spoken, for instance, &ldquo;ing&rdquo; is usually pronounced like the end of the word &ldquo;king.&rdquo; It&rsquo;s the &ldquo;e&rdquo; in &ldquo;cringe&rdquo; that changes its sound, so when some people see &ldquo;cringy&rdquo; they think it&rsquo;s wrong.<\/p>\n<p>After all, if someone clings too much you&rsquo;d call them &ldquo;clingy,&rdquo; (cling-ee) right?<\/p>\n<p>Of course, there are also counter-examples like stingy (pronounced stinn-jee) AND dingy (din-jee).<\/p>\n<p>All the same, the spelling &ldquo;cringey&rdquo; is the one most commonly included in dictionaries as the head word (or &ldquo;main&rdquo; spelling), with &ldquo;cringy&rdquo; delegated to an alternate spelling.<\/p>\n<p><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-8939\" src=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Cringy-vs.-Cringey-Pin.jpg\" alt=\"Cringy vs. Cringey\" width=\"1000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Cringy-vs.-Cringey-Pin.jpg 320w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Cringy-vs.-Cringey-Pin-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Cringy-vs.-Cringey-Pin-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Cringy-vs.-Cringey-Pin-768x1152.jpg 768w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Cringy-vs.-Cringey-Pin-561x842.jpg 561w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Cringy-vs.-Cringey-Pin-364x546.jpg 364w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Cringy-vs.-Cringey-Pin-728x1092.jpg 728w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Cringy-vs.-Cringey-Pin-608x912.jpg 608w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Cringy-vs.-Cringey-Pin-758x1137.jpg 758w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" data-pin-media=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Cringy-vs.-Cringey-Pin.jpg\"><\/noscript><img loading=\"eager\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-8939 eager-load\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%201000%201500'%3E%3Crect%20width='1000'%20height='1500'%20style='fill:%23e3e3e3'\/%3E%3C\/svg%3E\" alt=\"Cringy vs. Cringey\" width=\"1000\" height=\"1500\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" data-pin-media=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Cringy-vs.-Cringey-Pin.jpg\" id=\"mv-trellis-img-1\" data-src=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Cringy-vs.-Cringey-Pin.jpg\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Cringy-vs.-Cringey-Pin.jpg 320w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Cringy-vs.-Cringey-Pin-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Cringy-vs.-Cringey-Pin-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Cringy-vs.-Cringey-Pin-768x1152.jpg 768w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Cringy-vs.-Cringey-Pin-561x842.jpg 561w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Cringy-vs.-Cringey-Pin-364x546.jpg 364w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Cringy-vs.-Cringey-Pin-728x1092.jpg 728w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Cringy-vs.-Cringey-Pin-608x912.jpg 608w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Cringy-vs.-Cringey-Pin-758x1137.jpg 758w\" data-svg=\"1\" data-trellis-processed=\"1\"><\/p>\n<h2>&nbsp;<\/h2>\n<h2>Usage and descriptivism<\/h2>\n<p>Contrary to popular belief, the job of a dictionary is actually not to list a &ldquo;correct&rdquo; spelling, but <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/but-rather-in-a-sentence\/\">rather<\/a> <\/strong>to describe actual usage.<\/p>\n<p>Dictionaries shouldn&rsquo;t be used to prove arguments about &ldquo;proper&rdquo; language use. Instead, they are descriptive tools.<\/p>\n<p>In linguistics, descriptivism is the word used for an approach to language that is based in how people actually use it in real life.<\/p>\n<p>The <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/thank-you-for-your-understanding\/\">alternative<\/a><\/strong>, where people try to tell you what &ldquo;should&rdquo; be done, is prescriptivism.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, dictionaries are closer to reflections of what people actually say than they are to explanations of &ldquo;correct&rdquo; spelling and grammar.<\/p>\n<p>This also, more or less, means that it doesn&rsquo;t matter what&rsquo;s &ldquo;correct&rdquo; so much as it matters what people are used to seeing and using.<\/p>\n<p>The tool that linguists use to determine usage over time is called an n-gram.<\/p>\n<p>The technical details aren&rsquo;t important here, but basically an n-gram is just a chart showing how many times a word was recorded in writing in a specific year for a certain set of texts.<\/p>\n<p>Google Books has a nifty n-gram tool that uses all of Google Books (that&rsquo;s a lot of words, with a large portion of published books included from 1800 to <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/comma-after-today\/\">today<\/a><\/strong>), and we can compare the n-grams for cringy and cringey there to see which is more widely used.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/ngrams\/graph?content=cringy&amp;year_start=1800&amp;year_end=2019&amp;case_insensitive=on&amp;corpus=26&amp;smoothing=7&amp;direct_url=t4%3B%2Ccringy%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3BCringy%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bcringy%3B%2Cc0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Cringy<\/a><\/strong> does well enough, with a decent bulge of use in the mid-1800s and a smaller uptick post-2000.<\/p>\n<p>The n-gram for cringey, though, shows that this spelling enjoys considerably more popularity.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, &ldquo;cringey&rdquo; is more than 2 times more likely to be used than &ldquo;cringy,&rdquo; at least in all the writing that&rsquo;s recorded in Google Books.<\/p>\n<p>It&rsquo;s not quite a total K.O., but at least according to dictionaries and the Google Books n-gram, &ldquo;cringey&rdquo; is the winner of this fight.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>That said, remember that these are <em>descriptive tools<\/em>. They don&rsquo;t really exist to force people to use a specific, supposedly &ldquo;correct&rdquo; spelling.<\/p>\n<p>That means that if you are used to &ldquo;cringy&rdquo; and think &ldquo;cringey&rdquo; looks really strange, you can <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/suit-yourself-meaning\/\">suit yourself<\/a><\/strong> and keep using it.<\/p>\n<p>Just don&rsquo;t be surprised if you&rsquo;re told it&rsquo;s misspelled by your e-including friends.<\/p>\n<p>(Interestingly, my browser&rsquo;s spell-checker doesn&rsquo;t think <em>either<\/em> is a correctly-spelled word!)<\/p>\n<h2>&nbsp;<\/h2>\n<h2>Cringe-worthy: A less cringey (or cringy) alternative<\/h2>\n<p>If you hate the fact that there&rsquo;s no right answer here, don&rsquo;t give up hope.<\/p>\n<p>The next time you need to say something&rsquo;s embarrassing or awkward, why not try the word &ldquo;cringe-worthy&rdquo; instead?<\/p>\n<p>It means exactly the same thing, but has the benefit of not ending in a &ldquo;y,&rdquo; so you don&rsquo;t need to worry about whether &ldquo;cringey&rdquo; or &ldquo;cringy&rdquo; is the correct spelling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the things that makes English such a great language is how versatile it is. As an example, it&rsquo;s possible to turn many nouns or verbs into adjectives by adding a -y on the end. Things get complicated when the word ends in an &ldquo;e,&rdquo; though. As an example of which, people often ask &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8936,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"disable-in-feed":false,"article-schema-type":"","disable-critical-css":false,"_convertkit_action_broadcast_export":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1116],"tags":[140,139],"class_list":["post-8934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-grammar","tag-cringey","tag-cringy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8934"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8942,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8934\/revisions\/8942"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}