Tenderhooks? Tenterhooks.

I got an interesting edit on A Cheyenne Celebration that I wanted to share: When you're "hanging on tenderhooks", the word is actually "tenterhooks". I had no idea (but now understand why my spell check catches it)! So of course I looked it up...

Historically, when making wool cloth, the material ended up... well, sheepy (pretty sure that's a word). With the oils and dirt that the original fleece had on it. So you had to wash it, and then dry it, all without letting it shrink (because, you know, wool shrinks in the wash). So after washing, the wool was stretched on a wooden frame (called the tenter-- from the Latin "to stretch") with nails/hooks driven all around the edges. It was literally pinned to the frame with these "tenter hooks" and left to dry in the sun. 

So now, having seen quite a few of these devices, I can say that they DON'T look pleasant, and definitely not something I'd like to "hang on". Now that I know the origin of the phrase, I know I'll be able to use it more powerfully. Hopefully you will too!

Have you ever discovered that you'd been using a word incorrectly? What was it?