Lorenzo Gariano reached the summit of Mt. Everest today, according to reports here and here relayed by Chris Valentine. Lorenzo, former KMi ‘plantmeister’, Seven Summits aspirant (highest peak on each continent — 5 down, 2 to go) and KMi Xtreme Webcaster Extraorinaire came very close last year as we reported then, and has now done it!
The descent is typically even more dangerous, so we’re waiting with bated* breath to get Lorenzo’s next podcast/update.
In the meantime, hearty congratulations!!
*[update: thanks to tipoff from Peter Sharpe about my sloppy typo, here’s a commentary from Michael Quinon on World Wide Words
“…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 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 has the meaning “reduced, lessened, lowered in force”. So bated breath refers to a state in which you almost stop breathing through terror, awe, extreme anticipation, or anxiety…”
Plus much more: worth reading the original
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