Make Your Editor Cry: Bae vs Bay
A bay is a small inlet, a small recess in a wall, a compartment in an aircraft used for a specific purpose, an area inside a building where one services a vehicle, the sound or production of the sound a hound makes when treeing or tracking prey, certain plants with leaves used as laurel wreaths or in cooking, or a reddish-brown color of horses or other fur-bearing animals. Bay is used as a noun, adjective, or verb and related words are bays, bayed, baying.
Bae is a fairly new word, an acronym, that stands for “Before Anyone Else.” Many internet sources claim that Bae as an acronym is apocryphal and, without going too far into it, they don’t know what they’re talking about. Bae is a term for one’s significant other or a term of address for one’s significant other. It first appeared in the early 2000s in American rap music and then spread to internet memes and on into popular culture. Bae can be used as a noun or an adjective. A great new hairstyle can be described as a “Bae magnet weave” for example.
More examples:
Incorrect:
There’s no way I’m going to that party without my bay by my side.
I’m sittin’ on the dock of the bae watchin’ the tide roll away.
Correct:
There’s no way I’m going to that party without my Bae by my side.
I’m sittin’ on the dock of the bay watchin’ the tide roll away.
Gregg Bridgeman is the Editor-in-Chief at Olivia Kimbrell Press. He is husband to best-selling Christian author Hallee Bridgeman and parent to three. He continues to proudly serve in the US Armed Forces and has done so in either an active or reserve capacity for more than twenty years as an airborne and air assault qualified paratrooper, earning a Bronze Star for his service. Most importantly, he was ordained in October of 2001 after surrendering his life to Christ decades earlier.