Getting our bearings

April 16th, 2009 at 07:00am Barry Wood

In the 1967 animated Disney film “The Jungle Book,” the character Baloo the bear sings about “The Bare Necessities.” Thanks, Disney folks. As if “bear” and “bare” weren’t confusing enough already.

For example, we recently wrote about a town that “will have to bare” a financial burden.

Not so. That “bare” is usually an adjective meaning naked, empty (the cupboard is bare), simple (the bare facts) and without tools or weapons, obsolete except in the phrase “bare hands.”

It carries similar meanings when acting as a verb: an animal baring its teeth, a confessor baring his soul.

The verb “bear” is what’s needed above to handle that burden, or to bear a child or bear witness, and so on.

Idiomatically, it’s used in such phrases as “bear down,” “bear up” and “bring to bear upon.”

As a noun, a “bear” is an animal. It’s also slang for “a difficult task.”

English, for example, can be a bear.

Entry Filed under: homonyms, word choices