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Lately The Snarky Editor has run across a great many authors who have trouble keeping “bear” and “bare” straight. It’s actually not tough.
Bear means to hold up under, to carry, to endure. We bear a burden, bear a cross. When we move a big box, we bear it to the new location.
Bare means uncovered, or naked, or exposed, or unadorned. We bare our teeth, we bare (expose) a villain, we bare our bodies to sunbathe.
And the bear/bare confusion is only the beginning when it comes to authors having issues with bears.
I bear my teeth…
Well, we’re always carrying our molars around with us, so in that sense we bear them. But when we grimace, we bare our incisors.
with a teeth-bearing grin…
And again with the teeth… it’s a teeth-baring grin.
…. stripping away everything and bearing my soul…
Nope. He’s revealing or exposing his innermost feelings, so he’s baring his soul.
Grizzly murders….
Well, unless they were committed by bears, the murders would have been grisly, not grizzly. A grizzly is a very large, powerful, and typically brownish-yellow bear, also known — for good reason — as ursa horribilis. Grisly, on the other hand, means horrible, ghastly, or gruesome. In the case of murder, it usually means a particularly bloody or disturbing crime scene.
He stared down at the grizzly assortment of items.
Do all those items have something to do with bears? If not, the author meant grisly.
And just for some variety…
… reminded him of the bear-skinned rug in his father’s hunting cabin.
It’s true that a hunter skinned a bear in order to decorate the cabin, but the result is a bearskin rug. This author conflated the two terms to come up with something new and inaccurate.
And that’s it for 2025, dear readers. The Snarky Editor wishes you a happy, smooth, and grammatical 2026!
The Snarky Editor comes out of hiding occasionally to comment on the awkward, silly, and sometimes hilarious editing errors found in published books.
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Leigh Michaels is the award-winning author of more than 100 books, including historical and contemporary romance, non-fiction books about writing, and local history. More than 35 million copies of her books are in print in 27 languages and more than 120 countries. She is also a writing coach and book editor, though she promises to be snarky only in regard to published books.
To find out more, check out https://leighmichaels.com
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