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This is from the BBC Earth Lab YouTube channel, Life Survives in Extreme Icy Conditions | Earth | BBC Earth Lab (see: 0:12-0:22)

And out here in the biting face of the cold, it's easy to imagine that the endless winter put pay to complex life on Earth.

I looked up "put pay" in several dictionaries. There are no entries in the form of "put pay" but there is a very close one in the form of "put paid".

So, are they both correct, or is the TV presenter using it wrongly?

Kevin
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Yunus
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    He clearly says 'put pay'. It's an error. It should be, as you have said, 'put paid'. – Michael Harvey Jul 25 '23 at 19:44
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    FYI, as an American (Ohio), I've never heard of either phrasing. Astralbee's answer explains it, but we would not say that phrase and not know what it means. We would say end, terminate, or wipe-out instead in your original example, so it seems to be an idiom of regional use. – UnhandledExcepSean Jul 25 '23 at 21:33
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    @UnhandledExcepSean Could I just point out that Britain is not a "region" - it is a country, and the one where the English language had its origins. The expression "put paid to" is widely understood throughout the English-speaking world - the American dictionary, Merriam Webster, listing it - while marking it as "chiefly British". Clearly it belongs to the vast complement of English which is not in extensive use by the American public - though I think that the more literate and widely-read sections of American society will clearly appreciate its meaning. – WS2 Jul 25 '23 at 22:05
  • @UnhandledExcepSean And yes, "end", "wipe-out", and "terminate" are all perfectly well understood and in everyday use in Britain. – WS2 Jul 25 '23 at 22:20
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    This question had me on tender hooks for a while, but the answer seems to be a damp squid. – Dave Gremlin Jul 26 '23 at 10:49
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    @DaveGremlin I'm assuming the misquotes are deliberate, in which case hilarious! – Alan Jul 26 '23 at 12:49
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    @WS2 Not to denigrate Britain, but that is a region of the world just as the USA is a region. https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?scope=Entries&q=region You seem to take my comment as an attack on British English, but it was simply a comment that Americans don't widely use that phrase. The Google ngram site shows it is about five times more common in usage in British English and became a used phrase much earlier than it was in the US. This might be useful information for people running across this thread in the future. – UnhandledExcepSean Jul 26 '23 at 13:30
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    @Alan That kind of misheard idiom is called an "eggcorn". Rob Words had a fun video on them on YouTube if that's your kind of thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F12LSAbos7A – Jack Aidley Jul 26 '23 at 15:25
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    American here, and yeah, that phrase is pretty much nonsense to me. I'm sure some Americans know it but only the literate ones who reed they're bookz. – Thierry Jul 26 '23 at 20:51
  • OP, it was just a mistake why is this question not closed ? – Fattie Jul 27 '23 at 11:58
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    I hear the expression "put paid to" all the time in the USA. I just asked the three other people in this room (ie, everyday yanks, here in the South) if they knew the expression and they all looked at me as if I was strange since of course they knew it. – Fattie Jul 27 '23 at 11:59
  • @JackAidley and others IMO that's not an eggcorn. At the doctor's if I mispronounce/misunderstand "needle" as "noodle" or "meddle", that is not an eggcorn. If I mispronounce it as "nettle" - that's an eggcorn. (A nettle is sort of like a needle. The other words are meaningless mishearings.) An eggcorn is the same as a "folk etymology". – Fattie Jul 27 '23 at 12:02
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    As @WS2 says ... I just went in the other part of the building and asked FOUR 100% regular adult yanks if they knew the phrase "put paid to", and, again, they all looked at me as if I was strange since of course they knew it. – Fattie Jul 27 '23 at 12:04
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    @Fattie, both "tender hooks" and "damp squid" are, indeed, eggcorns. – Jack Aidley Jul 27 '23 at 14:06
  • @ I'm from the US Midwest and, like UnhandledExcepSean and Thierry, I feel like I've never heard this phrase and would have difficulty figuring out what it means even from context. I consider myself literate. – WaterMolecule Jul 27 '23 at 14:39
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    @Fattie - Why does the right answer being that the usage was a mistake suggest that a question asking why the usage was employed should be closed? I think it's a very good question. – tell Jul 27 '23 at 15:27
  • @Fattie Now we know that apparently the American south is one of the regions where it's used. I think I'd get murdered in some parts of the South if I called them yanks though:) – Thierry Jul 27 '23 at 18:00
  • @WS2 'The expression "put paid to" is widely understood throughout the English-speaking world' -- Just want to mention I'm Canadian and also never heard it. – wjandrea Jul 27 '23 at 19:58
  • @tell "America" means the USA in casual speech. If your native language is Spanish, then what you call "America", we call "the Americas" (north and south). For me, I'd be annoyed if you called me "American", cause I'm from Canada, not the US. – wjandrea Jul 27 '23 at 20:00
  • Born in Connecticut, never heard this expression. Time to work on not being illiterate I guess. – Leebo Jul 28 '23 at 00:55
  • @wjandrea The examples of its use include quotations from the Manitoba Free Press of 1930. – WS2 Jul 28 '23 at 05:52
  • Just to add, I'm from the Western US, and I've never heard the phrase – Quasi_Stomach Jul 28 '23 at 19:28
  • Some comments have been moved to chat; please do not continue the discussion about what Britain is or what a region is. Comments continuing those discussions will be removed. – gotube Sep 06 '23 at 00:09

4 Answers4

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"Put paid to..." is the correct idiom, but quite a few examples of "put pay to" can be found in literature, so BBC presenter Chris Packham is certainly not the first person to say it.

The origin of the phrase supposedly comes from the practice of stamping 'PAID' onto a bill which has been settled, finalising it. The idiom doesn't really work with anything but the past tense. A bill with 'PAY' on it sounds like it is still outstanding.

Astralbee
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    The earliest usage one lexicographer could find was from the Manitoba Morning Free Press, October 1905, “Wolverhampton Wanderers put paid to Bolton's account, the scores being: 2-0”. Use of the word “account” may have connected the phrase to the accounting metaphor “settling accounts” or “settling scores”: not only have you wrapped things up, you have done so to your satisfaction. – Michael Lorton Jul 26 '23 at 12:53
  • google n-grams is probably more useful than a google books search here. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=put+paid+to%2Cput+pay+to&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3 – Tristan Jul 26 '23 at 12:59
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    @Tristan No, not in this kind of situation and definitely not this particular case. For a start, Google Ngrams IS a search of Google books. Ngrams are good for comparing the use of valid words and idioms, not usually wrong ones. And lastly, you have to consider what non-comparable examples the search will return. Click my link and you'll see the first result is not an example of this phrase used incorrectly although the few that follow are. These would skew the results of an ngram. – Astralbee Jul 26 '23 at 15:11
  • @Astralbee I am aware that N-grams is a search of Google books. The N-grams search establishes that "put paid" is overwhelmingly more common, but that "put pay" exists, whilst the google books link only establishes the latter. Given the overall question, establishing the first is also important. I do agree that the underlying search including invalid examples is an issue – Tristan Jul 26 '23 at 15:35
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    Hmmm... After 34 years in Canada, and then 32 years in the US, that is not an idiom I am familiar with at all. – Flydog57 Jul 26 '23 at 19:53
  • Think this might be subjunctive mood? – LawrenceC Jul 27 '23 at 15:24
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    If you search Google Books more than half the examples of "put pay to" are of the form He put "pay to John" on the bill. NGrams isn't going to be as discerning. – Stuart F Jul 27 '23 at 16:46
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This is an error on the reporter’s side (occurs often while speaking.) According to Collin’s, Cambridge, and Merriam Webster, the correct form is “put paid to.”

Cambridge Dictionary

Word Origin

Unknown User
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  • The correct and full answer. It's bizarre we don't simply delete questions about mistakes. The incredible amount of discussion and long-winded answers, created by questions about mistakes, simply confuses the OP and future readers. – Fattie Jul 27 '23 at 12:05
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    Quite so. Listening to the video you can hear the speaker say put paid to – Matthew Leingang Jul 27 '23 at 19:40
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    @Fattie the answers (including this one) I see on this question are quite high quality and insightful by general Stack Exchange standards. Even supposing we agree that the reporter made a clear mistake, there is still an interesting underlying question about what the "proper" idiom is (insert here pages of diatribe about linguistic prescriptivism), what the etymology is to justify that usage, and why people might have a different perception. – Karl Knechtel Jul 27 '23 at 22:48
  • Aside from that, it seems there's still an open question as to whether the error - presuming that we accept, prescriptively, that it is an error - was on the part of the speaker or in OP's transcription. – Karl Knechtel Jul 27 '23 at 22:56
  • Karl, I'm afraid I can't agree. (1) I listened to some of the video in question. I trivially picked out at least 4 places where the speaker mis-speaks one thing or another (as with almost any spoken video, including even the highest budget movies) (2) The issue of the user's exact pronunciation, slurring, whatever, of some particular word in some random video from the millions of video in existence is: utterly irrelevant. (3) The issue of whether the machine generated close captions are accurate or not is: utterly, utterly irrelevant. Whilst YES the endless ramblings and asides are – Fattie Jul 28 '23 at 00:21
  • ... in and of themselves "interesting" in the abstract, they have nothing to do with the question at hand, which should just be closed as "typo" or "mistake by speaker". – Fattie Jul 28 '23 at 00:22
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This is what we'd call an malapropism. The individual in question either misremembered the phrase, or misheard it, and thus said it differently than other listeners might expect. This often happens with homonyms, particularly when a listener doesn't know one of the words in the idiom. In "The IT Crowd", there is a skit where a character confuses "damp squid" for the proper "damp squib," not knowing that a "squib" is a small explosive.

Similarly, since English has various words that sound alike, you'll sometimes find phrases like "bury the lead" instead of "bury the lede," or "tow the line" instead of "toe the line." These have recently been coined eggcorns, and typically present themselves in written, rather than spoken words. This occurs because the idioms use homophones, words that can't be distinguished by hearing alone, requiring context.

phyrfox
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  • English has a silent T and E in castle, it has a silent L in "almond" and "walk" (although I'm aware some Americans do pronounce the L in these words), a silent C in scent, a silent G in sign and a silent H in ghost and honest. A silent R in car and also a silent U in four. A silent B in comb and tomb, so now we have a silent D! What's one silent letter more? :)) :)) – Mari-Lou A Jul 26 '23 at 17:33
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    @Mari-LouA How do you pronounce "GHOT"? The answer is "fish". GH as in rough; o as in women, and T as in nation! – WS2 Jul 26 '23 at 18:38
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    @WS2 I think that was Ghoti originally :-) – Russell McMahon Jul 27 '23 at 09:42
  • @RussellMcMahon You may well be right! – WS2 Jul 27 '23 at 16:59
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    Eggcorns usually are distinguishable by a subtle difference in pronunciation. In my dialect, "eggcorn" itself is noticeably different from the original word "acorn" that it mimics (as a self-referential example). They're also narrower than simple misunderstandings (like "mondegreens" in music lyrics); a proper eggcorn comes with its own, plausible but false etymology. The case of "lede" is special as it's believed the spelling was deliberately invented for the purpose of the idiom. – Karl Knechtel Jul 27 '23 at 22:54
  • Exactly as Karl says, the "lede" example is not ideal here. – Fattie Jul 28 '23 at 00:22
  • Exactly as Karl says regarding eggcorns, as I mentioned up above " ... JackAidley and others IMO that's not an eggcorn. At the doctor's if I mispronounce/misunderstand "needle" as "noodle" or "meddle", that is not an eggcorn. If I mispronounce it as "nettle" - that's an eggcorn. (A nettle is sort of like a needle. The other words are meaningless mishearings.) An eggcorn is the same as a "folk etymology". – Fattie Jul 28 '23 at 00:23
  • As other's have noted an eggcorn is not just a mispronunciation. For all intensive purposes, it's a mute point to mention made up words like 'lede'. It doesn't pass the mustard as an eggcorn. – JimmyJames Jul 28 '23 at 15:40
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It's possible that the reporter did say "put paid" but that the transcript is wrong.

I'm a New Zealander. I listened to the comment a number of times. In isolation it does sound like "pay", but my ear-brain system can infer "paid" having been said. No guarantees :-) .

Toby Speight
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    Much as I want to hear "paid", I just can't. He's saying "pay", with not the slightest hint of the tongue flap that is often all that remains of a word-final /d/. – TonyK Jul 26 '23 at 13:11
  • @TonyK What flavour of English do you speak ? I agree that if it IS there it is very very minimal. But, my NZ brain will not allow it to be abent with complete certainty. – Russell McMahon Jul 26 '23 at 13:32
  • South-east British English. I reckon it's your brain, not your ear! – TonyK Jul 26 '23 at 14:16
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    I'd guess that he's saying "paid", but the trailing 'd' is being elided in favour of the 't' of the next word. It's lazy speech that fails to clearly pronounce all syllables, rather than using the wrong word. – Simon Geard Jul 26 '23 at 22:07
  • It's a great point about the transcription. There are more and more quewtions on here where someone Eagerly! points out a typo in the subtitles of some idiotic youtube video. Infuriating. – Fattie Jul 27 '23 at 12:09
  • It’s not just possible – it is unquestionably the case. He very clearly says paid, not pay. There’s even a pause after the /d/. Yes, the /d/ is quite weakly pronounced, but it’s quite unmistakably there. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jul 27 '23 at 21:04
  • @JanusBahsJacquet Where are you located, and what languages do you speak, and from what background? I ask because this seems to depend on a person's underlying "conditioning". New Zealanders have a distinctibeve accent (unless you are a NZer), but seem able to understand ccented English better than most other perople (in my experuience and perception). As per my answere, I hear the 'd' but not solidly. You seem top hear it with more certainty. Wheras TonyK cannot hear it. And simon Geard is somewhat on the fence. – Russell McMahon Jul 29 '23 at 10:48
  • @TonyK See latest comments by Jnus Bahs and I . – Russell McMahon Jul 29 '23 at 10:48
  • @Russell My linguistic background is… complicated. The English part of it is an admixture of fairly conservative SSBE (not too dissimilar from the presenter here) and fairly neutral broadcast-ish American, both influenced by growing up in non-English-speaking areas. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jul 29 '23 at 11:11