A WORD, PLEASE:

A Sept. 14, an AOL News article about food-borne pathogens reported that, “Oysters, steak tartare and sushi are just a few of the foods that often get a bad wrap.”

AOL News should be more concerned about the bad rap they themselves risk when they let mistakes like “bad wrap” get into print.

Dictionary.com says that a “rap” is, among other things, a criminal charge or blame. Hence the expressions “murder rap” or “to beat the rap.” And though the latter would be cause for celebration, you’d probably never throw a “rap party.”

You’d leave that to the folks who film TV shows and movies and who, when they’re done, throw “wrap parties,” echoing those little words every production assistant loves to hear: “It’s a wrap.”

“Bad rap” is one of many expressions that seem to get spoken a lot more than they get written. They’re so familiar, so cemented in our minds, that we feel we know them, even though we may not.

So if we’ve spent a lifetime hearing “all intensive purposes” when people said “all intents and purposes,” it’s natural that we wouldn’t question whether we have it right. It’s how embarrassing mistakes are born.

Here are some of the most commonly misheard expressions. Speak them with confidence, but write them with caution.

You may while away the hours, but unless you’re a conniving coyote, you don’t “wile” them away. That’s because, as a verb, “while” means “to spend time idly or pleasantly.”

Idleness gets a bad rap from folks who say that the devil finds work for idle hands. Downtime, they say, can be used to wreak havoc. “Wreak” means to inflict, bring about or cause. So never write “to reek havoc,” which would be nonsense. That’s the equivalent of staying “to stink trouble.”

The letter W should be left out; however, when you’re trying hard to think of something, it could cause you to write “I’m wracking my brains” instead of the correct “I’m racking my brains.”

The word “rack” has roots in a word meaning “to torture by stretching,” while “wrack” means to destroy or wreck completely.

So “wreak” and “wrack” are not one and the same. And they’re certainly not “one in the same.” The latter expression is considered a mistake. “One and” is the way to go.

For years, when people said “toe the line,” I pictured a group of sailors holding a rope up over their shoulders and pulling it. They were, in my mind, “towing” a line. But, no. The expression really refers to runners in a race who “toe their marks” at the starting line.

The runner who stays a little behind, who isn’t positioned to perform as well as the others, deserves to be told to “toe the line,” as in, “get up here with the rest of us.”

Usually, people like that couldn’t care less about carrying their own weight. They’re also likely to say “could care less.”

The latter has become so common that many language authorities now accept it. But it’s really a derivation of the older and more precise, “I couldn’t care less.” And if you care what others think, use “couldn’t” in that expression.

All tolled (not “told”), getting these expressions right is a tough row (not “road”) to hoe, and learning them is like a rite (not “right”) of passage that you might say is part of the vale (not “veil”) of tears we call life.

But when worse comes to worst (not “worse”), a little effort can tide (not “tie”) you over well enough that no one ever thinks of you as harebrained (not “hairbrained”).

 JUNE CASAGRANDE is a freelance writer and author of “Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies” and “Mortal Syntax: 101 Language Choices That Will Get You Clobbered by the Grammar Snobs — Even If You’re Right.” She may be reached at JuneTCN@ aol.com.