I dunno, maybe this writer was confused by the music duo Hall & Oates?? It does rather sound like “haulin’ oats” . . .
Anyway, hall is a noun that always relates to architecture whether it’s a corridor in a house, a building where students live or eat, or a large event place.
A haul can be noun or verb and drags or pulls something, abruptly changes course, a distance covered, or something earned or stolen.
Just so’s ya don’t feel so bad, hall and haul are a pair of heterographs (a subset of homophone).
Word Confusions . . .
. . . started as my way of dealing with a professional frustration with properly spelled words that were out of context in manuscripts I was editing as well as books I was reviewing. It evolved into a sharing of information with y’all. I’m hoping you’ll share with us words that have been a bête noire for you from either end.
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| Hall | Haul |
|---|---|
 |
 |
| Part of Grammar: | |
| Noun
Plural: halls |
Noun; Verb, intransitive & transitive Plural for the noun: hauls Third person present verb: hauls |
[North American] An area in a building onto which rooms open
A large room for meetings, concerts, or other events
[British; usually in names] A large country house, especially one with a landed estate [Historical] The building in which a guild was housed |
Noun: A quantity of something that was stolen, taken, acquired, or is possessed illegally [Fishing] The quantity of fish taken at one draft of the net
The number of points, medals, or titles won by a person or team in a sporting event or over a period All the products purchased by someone during a particular episode of shopping The distance or route over which anything is hauled An act or instance of hauling
Something that is hauled The load hauled at one time
Verb, intransitive: To go or come to a place, especially with effort To do carting, transport, or move freight commercially [Nautical; especially of a sailing ship; with adverbial of direction] Make an abrupt change of course
[Informal] Force someone to appear for reprimand or trial Verb, transitive:
[Of a vehicle] Pull an attached trailer or load behind it
|
| Examples: | |
| The bathroom is just down the hall.
The hall at the front contains a spiral staircase. Carnegie Hall has fostered the future of music since 1891. The village hall is the central meeting place for its inhabitants with all sorts of activities. According to these reports, the royal family gathered for an evening meal in the banquet hall of the palace. He dined in hall. Our residence hall has rules about visitors, whether they are male or female. The medieval Great Hall served as dining area, staged entertainments, and served as a sleeping space for servants and soldiers. We were to meet at Darlington Hall. The upper floor was the great hall where guild members met. |
Noun: They escaped with a haul of antiques. He landed a record pike haul. “The haul seine, one of the oldest forms of fishing gear, was fished throughout the Great Lakes area by Indians, traders, and settlers” (Gordon). Brailsford said “two or three medals” would be a satisfactory haul in Athens. I’m really pleased with my haul, as I think I got some great bargains. Included in her beauty haul were a lot of facial masks. It was the thirty-mile haul to Tallahassee that would see the end of my trip. Frank was a long haul trucker, but his wife was a short haul. Verb, intransitive: The waters of the Nile slipped beneath the hull, and the boat hauled for the western shore. After roistering about the streets, they finally hauled into the tavern. He is to be hauled before the Press Council. The boat was hauled up onto shore for caulking. Hauling out a sailboat at the end of the season is usually a sad event. In it is found for the first time the close-hauled line-of-battle undeniably adopted as the fighting order of the fleets (Mahan). Take in the sheets; the wind is starting to haul. Verb, transitive: He hauled himself along the cliff face. Paul hauled her up onto shore. He made a living hauling coal. They will be hauled into court next week. The train was hauling a cargo of liquid chemicals. Bennie hauls trash in North Philadelphia. |
| Derivatives: | |
| Noun: hallway | Noun: haulage, hauler, haulier [British] |
| Phrasal Verb | |
| haul in haul off haul out |
|
| History of the Word: | |
| Old English hall, heall originally denoting a roofed space, located centrally, for the communal use of a tribal chief and his people, is of Germanic origin and related to the German Halle, the Dutch hall, and also to the Norwegian and the Swedish hall. | Mid-16th century originally in the nautical sense trim sails for sailing closer to the wind. It’s also a variant of hale, meaning drag or draw forcibly. |
C’mon, get it out of your system, bitch, whine, moan . . . which words are your pet peeves? Also, please note that I try to be as accurate as I can, but mistakes happen or I miss something. Email me if you find errors, so I can fix them . . . and we’ll all benefit!
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Resources for Hall vs Haul
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Apple Dictionary.com
Dictionary.com: haul
Gordon, William G. “Haul Seining In the Great Lakes.
Bureau of Commercial Fisheries. Exploratory Fishing and Gear Research Base, Ann Arbor, Michigan. n.d. Web. n.d. <https://spo.nmfs.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/legacy-pdfs/leaflet577.pdf>.
Mahan, A.T. The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660–1783. CreateSpace Independent Publishing, 2017. Print. <https://amzn.to/3RPFr89>.
Pinterest Photo Credits:
The background of Airmen’s Attic Donation by Tech. Sgt. James Hodgman, U.S. Air Force, was removed and is in the public domain courtesy of Travis Air Force Base and Empty Hallway by Luca Cacciatori is under the CC0 license, via Pixnio.
Revised as of 13 Apr 2024
By: Kathy Davie