loathe

I discovered this example sentence in the Australian Writers’ Centre website:

A: Yes. Often you may see it written like this: “You did well, as much as it loathes me to say.” Usually more for dramatic effect than being common usage.

I was about to leap on this with fury (I loathe bad grammar) but, as is usual with me, I checked OED first.  There I travelled through all the shifts in meaning for loath (reluctant) and loathe (to detest) and stumbled across the fact that in Old English there was an idiom It loathes me of (something) or it loathes me (to do something).  This developed from the intransitive use of loathe meaning ‘to disgust’.

Of course this idiom became obsolete in the late 1500s and has no bearing on the current mix-up, but it is curious.  The current difficulty is a mash-up of the phrases it pains me (to do something) and I am loath to (do something) with loath meaning ‘reluctant’.

The situation is not helped by the fact that loath and loathe have been swapping spellings for centuries and that loth is a variant of loath. (I am loth to tell you this).

But the consensus today is that loath is the adjective (reluctant) and loathe is the verb (to detest) and loth is a minor variant of loath.  So I am loath to tell you that the idiom it loathes me to say is not acceptable.