Wriggle room? Wiggle room? Which do you say when referring to the need for a little bit more freedom?
Well, TV presenter Dan Walker has successfully managed to make us question how we say everything after tweeting the following yesterday (Tuesday 14 March):
Yup, if you’re now trying to suss which one you say, you’re not alone. And it’s safe to say that the presenter’s question has Twitter divided.
“Wriggle seems to be more grammatically apt but wiggle just sounds better in this context,” responded one Twitter account.
“Wriggle room is a little tongue twister. Stick with Wiggle,” added another.
And one completely summed up how we’re feeling: “Dan stop making me doubt everything that I thought I knew.”
Well, you might be surprised to know that there is ACTUALLY a correct answer.
The Oxford Dictionary does in fact throw up answers to both options but unfortunately team ‘wriggle room’, yours is the lesser used term, with ‘wiggle room’ being the primary.
It’s reflected in Google data too – ‘wiggle room’ throws up a whopping thirty MILLION answers when Googled, while ‘wriggle room’ only produces a humble 2.9 million.
So if you want to flex next time you ask for a little bit more leeway, wiggle is the way to go.