free rein

“I guess I availed myself of some free rain with those horse words,” Timmy Danos said, chuckling a little. Since he was speaking, I didn’t notice his spelling. He had circled to the bar to get himself another drink, and came back with one for me as well – a glass of sherry or something like it – so I was perfectly glad to keep talking with him and Donna Ferrante a little longer. 

“Interesting way of phrasing it,” I said. “People ‘get’ or ‘are given’ free rein, but I can’t think of ever hearing ‘availed myself.’”

“Well,” Timmy said, “if the rain is free, who am I to turn it away from my crops?”

“Sorry, what?” I said.

“Oh, that makes sense,” Donna said. “If the rainmaker is making rain…”

“Wait,” I said, but then I waited to see what he was going to say next.

“Well, yeah,” he said, “there was a king who had the power of making it rain, and usually he charged taxes, but sometimes he would just do it for free.”

“It’s… not usually… that kind of ‘rain,’” I said.

“Yeah, come to think of it,” Donna said, “I usually see it spelled r-e-i-g-n.”

“Well, sure,” Timmy said. “He was a king, so making the weather was part of his royal powers. So if he was making it rain, he was reigning, and if he wasn’t collecting taxes, he was doing it for free.”

“Oh,” Donna said, “I thought it was the other kind of free. Like no one’s keeping you from reigning.”

“Who would do that?” Timmy said. “Who’s above a king? Like, the king’s boss is going to text him and say ‘You’re on your own today’?”

“I have to say,” I said, “I’m surprised you’re not connecting it to horses, given your Trojan connections.”

“Horses?” Timmy said. “A horse king?” I really couldn’t tell if he was pulling my leg, but I had to assume he was, given precedent.

“Rein, as in r-e-i-n, the thing you use to control a horse,” I said.

“But that would be ‘free reins,’ wouldn’t it?” Donna said. “Because there are two of them.”

“It has sometimes been plural, historically, but the singular has prevailed, terming it like a type or mass object, in parallel with ‘free hand’ and so on,” I said. “It’s an old and well established idiom.”

“But, OK, you don’t pay for the reins, so what?” Timmy said. “You’re still using them to control the horse. What does ‘free’ mean?”

“It means you’re not tugging on them, so the horse is free in them,” I said. “Free as in not constrained.”

“But that would be ‘rein-free’ or ‘free of reins,’” Donna said.

“No, the reins are still attached, they’re just not constraining.”

“I find that a very weird way to put it,” Donna said.

“Welcome to English idioms,” I said. “We’ve had this one since the 1600s.”

“Well, I like the royal reign version better,” Donna said.

“And I like the precipitation version better,” Timmy said. “And since you’re drinking rainwater Madeira” – he gestured at my little tawny glass – “and you didn’t pay for it, I reckon I get to pull your strings.”

“Or jerk my chain,” I said, and drained the glass.