| Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993. |
| |
| bit (nn.) |
| |
| |
| Bit is three different nouns, two of them related, the other wholly unrelated. The oldest was originally an Old English noun and means “something bitten or held in the teeth”: among its meanings are “the bit put in the horse’s mouth and attached to the bridle,” “the bit of a tobacco pipe or cigarette holder,” “the drill bit,” “the jaws of pliers, tongs, and the like,” and “the working shaft end of a key.” All belong to this first noun, and all are Standard. | 1 |
| The second is related to an Old English verb meaning “to bite,” and this bit is “a bite or bite-sized morsel”: a bit of food or a small quantity of anything; an eighth of a dollar, more familiar to us in the slang term for a quarter, two bits; anything unimportant or brief, as in wait a bit, a bit of a nuisance, every bit as bad; and in the theater a small part—a bit, a bit part, or a bit role—and some sort of brief routine—a comedy bit. All these are Standard. The idiom the whole bit, meaning a collection of all the pieces of an idea or a situation, is slang, as in I couldn’t stand their modishness—the precious conversation, the finical manners, the contrived humor—the whole bit bored me. | 2 |
| This same bit, meaning “bite or morsel,” is also used as a qualifier, meaning “somewhat” or “rather,” as in This movie is a bit dull. The idioms a bit much (She’s a bit much; I can’t stand her), bit by bit (meaning “little by little”), to do one’s bit (meaning “to do one’s share”), and every bit as (meaning “wholly, entirely, altogether,” as in She is every bit as unpleasant as I feared) are clichés but Standard. See also KIND OF. | 3 |
| The third noun is an acronym, made from the first two letters of binary and the last letter of digit (or the first letter of binary and the last two letters of digit); in computerese it means “one digit in a binary number system” and hence “a yes or no choice and the electrical or other physical representation of such a choice on tape, punch card, or in a computer memory.” This bit is a single basic unit of information used in computing and in information theory. See BIGHT. | 4 |
| |
| | | The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. Copyright © 1993 Columbia University Press. |
|
|
