I have noticed lately that a lot of users on Lemmy spell whining as “whinging” what’s up with that? I could understand if it was misspelled “wining” or somthing but that extra g really confuses me. Is this a misspelling specific for some region or is it lingo of some sort?

  • DogMuffins
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    18
    ·
    1 year ago

    Whining is usually general and not actionable, while whinging is specific and can be remedied.

    My kid has spent the last few weeks whining about how hard it is to be a teenager. This morning they had a whinge about always being the one to let the dog out.

    • JungleJim@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      So in TheBananaKing’s example of the dog wanting to go out, that’s actionable, because the dog can be let out, and would therefore actually be whinging and not whining?

      • DogMuffins
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        1 year ago

        Perhaps. I’ve definitely heard whinge applied to animals, like when people talk to their dogs, “are you having a whinge mate? Didn’t anyone let you out?”.

        In that context whine is the sound and whinge is the message.

        • JungleJim@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          Thank you, that makes sense of it. I suppose I see why the US dropped the “g” in whinge and just went with whine. There’s a lot context in the differences, but they’re also so similar that things could be more confusing when made more specific, to the point where the two are used almost, but not quite, interchangeably.