Rack and Wrack

People! Stop "wracking" your brains! It sounds terribly painful. Actually, so does "racking" your brain. Read on...

Racking something is to stretch it out, as if it were on the medieval torture instrument seen here. You "rack your brain" to try to get information from it. It sounds like a terribly mean thing to do.

Wracking refers to disastrous accidents. Think of it as being similar to "wreck."

He's back...

I've been racking my brain trying to figure out how this lion got into the kitchen. Tonight's dinner has been wracked by his shenanigans.