Hinge Verb Query

We're all winners!

You have to put the e in in singeing, obviously, or it means something different.

bingeing and binging are both valid for "binge" in the continuous tense.

indeed, on a scottish newspaper such as this, it would be confusing: round these parts "hinging" (hard "g" sound) means "hanging".

one for my new (and vastly overdue) style book, i feel.

not on my watch. i absolutely refuse to let the word "swop" anywhere near my magazine.

Cor - that decision only took me 4 hours!

[...] In the course of history, final e has come and gone from many words; and in C21 English it still varies in the spelling of words. Its presence or absence is dictated by a number of rules and conventions:

1 The major rule affecting -e is dropping it before a suffix beginning with a vowel or y. This applies to an enormous number of words in English.

[...]

2 Exceptions and variations to the major rule are as follows:

[...]

e) Words ending in -inge such as singe may keep the e before adding -ing, and thus singeing is distinct from singing, springeing from springing, swingeing from swinging, tingeing from tinging. Some writers keep the -e in other rather uncommon verbs of this kind, e.g. bingeing, hingeing, twingeing, whingeing, even though there are no parallel words without the -e to confuse them with. But no-one keeps the -e in the more familiar verbs with -inge (e.g. cringe, fringe, impinge, infringe), and those with other vowels (e.g. change, lunge, plunge, sponge), which always become cringing, changing etc., in accordance with the major rule.

"HINGE n.

1. trans. To bend (anything) as a hinge.

1607 SHAKES. Timon IV. iii. 211 Be thou a Flatterer now..hindge thy knee. 1864 SALA in Daily Tel. 23 Nov., The wealthiest..city in America bows the neck, and hinges the knee, and crooks to the control of this man.

2. To attach or hang with or as with a hinge.

1758-65 GOLDSM. Ess., Eng. Clergy Wks. (Globe) 293/2 The vulgar..whose behaviour..is totally hinged upon their hopes and fears. 1804 W. TAYLOR in Ann. Rev. II. 365 The laws, which hinge gaming transactions on a mere principle of honor. 1879 M. PATTISON Milton vi. 70 Hooker's elaborate sentence..is composed of parts so hinged.

3. intr. To hang and turn on, as a door on its post.

1719 SPOTSWOOD in W. S. Perry Hist. Coll. Amer. Col. Ch. I. 206 The law you hinge on. 1795 BURKE Corr. (1844) IV. 317 Their adversaries endeavoured to give this colour to the contest, and to make it hinge on this principle. 1835 THIRLWALL Greece I. iii. 75 The point on which the decision must finally hinge. 1886 Bookseller Jan. 4/1 The destinies of the Empire are found to hinge on some Asiatic question.

Hence hinging vbl. n. (also attrib.).

1825 J. NICHOLSON Operat. Mechanic 591 Some information on the subject of hinging in general. 1846 RUSKIN Mod. Paint. I. II. I. vii. §27 Peculiar and hinging points on which the rest are based.