Month: September 2026 | Grammarphobia

Q: More and more, I am hearing people say “not trying to” when they mean “trying not to.” I just saw a woman on YouTube who said, “I wasn’t trying to take any chances.” What’s your take on this?

A: The phrase “not trying to” means lacking the intention or desire to do something, while “trying not to” means actively making an effort to avoid doing something. Both usages are legitimate. Yes, people sometimes use “not trying to” in the sense of “trying not to,” but the meaning is usually clear in context.

One possible reason for the mixup may be that many Americans pronounce “trying to” as “tryna,” and it may be more natural for them to say “not tryna” than “trying not to,” especially in informal conversation.

By the way, the You Tuber you cite could have been using “not trying to” in its usual sense if she had been accused of being reckless and responded by saying “I wasn’t trying to take any chances.”

Interestingly, “not trying to” was more common during the 20th century, but “trying not to” has been more popular in the 21st century, according to Google’s Ngram Viewer, which compares the use of words and phrases in digitized books. As for “trying to not,” it’s a distant third.

A spot check of 21st-century examples suggests people generally use “not trying to” and “trying not to” in the usual way. Here are a couple of examples from book titles: Mother Nature Is Not Trying to Kill You (2002), a wilderness survival guide by Rob Nelson and Haley Chamberlain Nelson, and Trying Not to Love You (2026), a novel by Kaylee Ryan.

As for the etymology, the English verb “try” is derived from the Old French trier (to pick out or choose). When it first appeared in Middle English in the early 14th century, it meant “to separate (one thing) from another or others,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

In the earliest OED citation, victorious Britons separate themselves on the battlefield from the defeated Romans: “Þey turnde ageyn, And tryde þe Bretons fro ilk Romeyn” (“They turned back, And tried [separated] the Britons from each Roman”). From Robert Mannyng’s Middle English translation (circa 1330) of Roman de Brut, a 12-century verse history of Britain by the Norman poet Wace.

The separating sense of “try” is now obsolete, but it’s reflected in several modern senses, including the legal use of to “try” someone, which the OED defines as “to determine the guilt or otherwise of (an accused person) by consideration of the evidence.”

The dictionary’s first citation for this sense is from a Latin-English dictionary: “Interrogari legibus, to be tried by examination, that they had offended against the lawis” (The Dictionary of Syr Thomas Eliot Knyght, 1538).

The earliest OED citation for the sense you’re asking about (“to make an effort, endeavour, attempt”) is from Dryden’s 1697 translation of Virgil’s Georgics (Book III), a poem about animal husbandry written in the first century BC.

In this passage a defeated bull attempts to recover for a second round with the bull that defeated him: “to repair his Strength he tries: Hardning his Limbs with painful Exercise.”

Finally, the participial adjective “trying” in the title of this post (“Trying times”) is derived from the use of the verb “try” to mean “subject to a severe test or strain.”

The earliest OED citation for this sense of “try” refers to the persecution of Old Testament prophets: “Other were tried w^t mockynges & scourgynges, moreouer, w^t bondes & presonment.” From The Byble in Englyshe (1539), Hebrews 11:36.

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Q: I’m rereading Josephine Tey’s Miss Pym Disposes and came across something that has always puzzled me. Teresa suggests to Miss Pym that they get coffee at a teashop called The Teapot. Miss Pym replies, “A little Hibernian, surely?” Can you enlighten me as to what Miss Pym means?

A: We think Josephine Tey is using “Hibernian” here to mean “Irish,” which has had the colloquial sense of illogical or paradoxical for several centuries. In Miss Pym Disposes, the paradox is going for coffee at a teashop.

The oldest of these terms is the adjective “Irish,” which was spelled yriscan (roughly UR-iss-kahn) when it appeared in Old English and referred to a native of Ireland. The earliest example in the Oxford English Dictionary is from a passage in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year 1055:

“Hig gegaderadan ða mycle fyrde mid ðam yriscan mannan & mid Walkynne” (“They gathered then a great army with the Irish men and with the Welsh men”).

The OED says a “somewhat offensive” colloquial sense of “Irish” appeared in the early 19th century and referred to “a statement or action” that was “paradoxical; illogical or apparently so.”

The dictionary’s earliest citation, which we’ve expanded, is in a letter dated Feb. 5, 1820, from Henry Peter Brougham, a Whig Member of Parliament, to Thomas Creevey, a Whig politician.

In the letter, Brougham responds to a suggestion by Creevey that he send a courier to Queen Caroline by saying he has already sent one, and then apologizing parenthetically for the clumsiness of his wording:

“Your advice has been followed by anticipation (to speak Irish); at this moment my courier is within a couple of days’ journey of the Queen.” From the The Creevey Papers (1903), edited by Herbert Maxwell.

However, the word “Irish” had been used similarly in the noun phrase “Irish bull,” which the OED says appeared nearly a century earlier and referred to “a statement which is manifestly self-contradictory or inconsistent, esp. to humorous effect.” The dictionary notes that this usage is “now likely to be considered offensive.”

The first Oxford example is from the title of a poem by the Irish poet Mary Barber: “To the Right Honourable the Earl of Thormond, at Bath; who Charg’d the Author with Making an Irish Bull.” In the poem, she reminds the Earl of his own Irish heritage and says it’s unbecoming of him to mock the speech of his native island.

The OED says the noun “bull” in “Irish bull” is “of unknown origin,” but it notes that boul in Old French meant fraud, deceit, or trickery, while the noun “bull” in Middle English meant a falsehood and the verb “bull” meant to fool, mock, or cheat.

In early modern English, the dictionary says, the noun “bull” took on the sense “a self-contradictory proposition” and “in modern use, an expression containing a manifest contradiction in terms or involving a ludicrous inconsistency unperceived by the speaker.”

The first OED citation for the noun used this way is from The Antipodes: a Comedie (1640), by the British playwright Richard Brome: “Dumbe Speaker! that’s a Bull.” (Brome later puns on “bull” by using it in the bovine sense.)

Getting back to your question, when the adjective “Hibernian” appeared in early modern English, it meant, as it usually means today, “of or belonging to Ireland; Irish,” according to the OED. The dictionary’s first citation is from a book by the Scottish writer William Lithgow about his travels:

“The conscionable carriage of the Hybernian Clergy.” From The Totall Discourse, of the Rare Aduentures, and Painefull Peregrinations of Long Nineteene Yeares Trauayles, from Scotland, to the Most Famous Kingdomes in Europe, Asia, and Affrica, (1632).

But in the dictionary’s next citation, Alexander Pope uses “Hibernian” in the sense you’re asking about. Pope uses the adjective in referring to a passage, later corrected, in his poem “An Essay on Criticism”: “ ’Tis right Hibernian, and I confess it what the English call a bull” (in a letter dated June 25, 1711, from Pope to John Caryl).

We hope we’ve helped you dispose of your confusion over the use of “Hibernian” in Miss Pym Disposes.

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